Baroclinic Vorticity Production in Protoplanetary Disks. II. Vortex Growth and Longevity

The factors affecting vortex growth in convectively stable protoplanetary disks are explored using numerical simulations of a two-dimensional anelastic-gas model that includes baroclinic vorticity production and radiative cooling. The baroclinic feedback, in which anomalous temperature gradients produce vorticity through the baroclinic term and vortices then reinforce these temperature gradients, is found to be an important process in the rate of growth of vortices in the disk. Factors that strengthen the baroclinic feedback include fast radiative cooling, high thermal diffusion, and large radial temperature gradients in the background temperature. When the baroclinic feedback is sufficiently strong, anticyclonic vortices form from initial random perturbations and maintain their strength for the duration of the simulation, for over 600 orbital periods. Based on both simulations and a simple vortex model, we find that the local angular momentum transport due to a single vortex may be inward or outward, depending on its orientation. The global angular momentum transport is highly variable in time and is sometimes negative and sometimes positive. This result is for an anelastic-gas model and does not include shocks that could affect angular momentum transport in a compressible-gas disk.