Dust plays an important role in planet formation as they grow from micron sized grains to over Mm sized planets. The intermediate stage, to form km-sized planetesimals from mm-cm sized dust particles, has been found to be difficult. These mm-cm sized dust particles frequently distribute in ring-like structures in protoplanetary disks as revealed in ALMA observations. Here, I present a series of MHD simulations with the Athena code to study planetesimal formation in MRI turbulent protoplanetary disks and in dust rings. Our result shows efficient dust clumping in these realistic environments, sufficient for planetesimal formation. I will also present some numerical efforts towards multi-stage studies of planet formation, including dust coagulation in the Athena++ MHD code and a local model for the protostellar collapse. These numerical tools pave way for tracing planet formation back to its earliest stages, bridging gaps in the current understanding.
Host: Xuening Bai
