The mass of gas in protoplanetary discs is a quantity of great interest for assessing their planet formation potential. Disc gas masses are, however, traditionally inferred from measured dust masses by applying an assumed standard gas-to-dust ratio of g/d = 100. Furthermore, measuring gas masses based on CO observations has been hindered by the effects of CO freeze-out. Here we present a novel approach to study the mid-plane gas by combining C 18 O line modelling, CO snowline observations and the spectral energy distribution (SED) and selectively study the inner tens of au where freeze-out is not relevant. We apply the modelling technique to the disc around the Herbig Ae star HD 163296 with particular focus on the regions within the CO snowline radius, measured to be at 90 au in this disc. Our models yield the mass of C M . We find that most of our models yield a notably low g/d < 20, especially in the disc mid-plane (g/d < 1). Our only models with a more interstellar medium (ISM)-like g/d require C 18O to be underabundant with respect to the ISM abundances and a significant depletion of submicron grains, which is not supported by scattered light observations. Our technique can be applied to a range of discs and opens up a possibility of measuring gas and dust masses in discs within the CO snowline location without making assumptions about the gas-to-dust ratio.

The Protoplanetary Discussions conference-held in Edinburgh, UK, from 2016 March 7th-11th-included several open sessions led by participants. This paper reports on the discussions collectively concerned with the multi-physics modelling of protoplanetary discs, including the self-consistent calculation of gas and dust dynamics, radiative transfer, and chemistry. After a short introduction to each of these disciplines in isolation, we identify a series of burning questions and grand challenges associated with their continuing development and integration. We then discuss potential pathways towards solving these challenges, grouped by strategical, technical, and collaborative developments. This paper is not intended to be a review, but rather to motivate and direct future research and collaboration across typically distinct fields based on community-driven input, to encourage further progress in our understanding of circumstellar and protoplanetary discs.

Giant molecular clouds (GMCs) are observed to be turbulent, but theory shows that without a driving mechanism turbulence should quickly decay. The question arises by which mechanisms turbulence is driven or sustained. It has been shown that photoionizing feedback from massive stars has an impact on the surrounding GMC and can for example create vast H II bubbles. We therefore address the question of whether turbulence is a consequence of this effect of feedback on the cloud. To investigate this, we analyse the velocity field of simulations of high-mass star-forming regions by studying velocity structure functions and power spectra. We find that clouds whose morphology is strongly affected by photoionizing feedback also show evidence of driving of turbulence by preserving or recovering a Kolmogorov-type velocity field. On the contrary, control run simulations without photoionizing feedback have a velocity distribution that bears the signature of gravitational collapse and of the dissipation of energy, where the initial Kolmogorov-type structure function is erased.

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