[astro-ph.EP] Understanding how solid material in planet-forming disks evolves from micron-sized dust to planetary cores is a central challenge in modern astrophysics. This study has advanced dramatically in the past decade, largely driven by ALMA and high-contrast imaging facilities.
However, major uncertainties remain regarding the presence, evolution, and role of centimeter-sized grains (the pebbles) in planet formation. The SKAO will fill this gap by enabling the first large-scale, high-resolution survey of disk emission at centimeter wavelengths.
This chapter presents the scientific rationale and observational strategies to detect and characterize pebbles in the planet-forming disks of nearby star-forming regions. By resolving their spatial distribution, spectral properties, and evolutionary trends, SKA will offer essential constraints on dust growth and disk dynamics.
This work provides observational strategies, target selection, and predictions on the detectability of hundreds of nearby disks.
The chapter also explores SKA’s potential to uncover the actual dust mass in disks, protoplanets and their circumplanetary disks, and other aspects of the planet formation. Together, these capabilities will establish SKAO as a cornerstone facility for planet formation science in the coming decade.
Antonio Garufi, Sebastián Pérez, John D. Ilee, Daniel J. Price, Paola Pinilla, Marion Villenave, Eleonora Bianchi, Luca Cacciapuoti, Greta Guidi, Giovanni Sabatini, Yinhao Wu, Asmita Bhandare, Claudio Codella, Nicolás Cuello, Liton Majumdar, Mayank Narang, Linda Podio, Danae Polychroni, Isaac Radley, Jessica Speedie, Leonardo Testi, Claudia Toci, Diego Turrini, David Wilner
Comments: Published in Advancing Astrophysics with the SKA II (AASKAII), 2026 (arXiv:2606.20366). Report-no: AASKAII/Garufi01
Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP); Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM); Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)
Report number: AASKAII/Garufi01
Cite as: arXiv:2606.28171 [astro-ph.EP] (or arXiv:2606.28171v1 [astro-ph.EP] for this version)
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2606.28171
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Submission history
From: Antonio Garufi
[v1] Fri, 26 Jun 2026 15:03:59 UTC (16,058 KB)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.28171
Astrobiology, exoplanet,
