Observing planetesimal formation under streaming instability in the rings of HD 163296

Abstract: We introduce a new technique to determine the gas turbulence and surface density in bright disc rings, under the assumption that dust growth is limited by turbulent fragmentation at the ring centre. We benchmark this prescription in HD 163296, showing that our measurements are consistent with available turbulence upper limits and agree with independent estimates of the gas surface density within a factor of two. We combine our results with literature measurements of the dust surface density and grain size to determine the dust-to-gas ratio and Stokes number in the 67 au and 100 au rings. Our estimates suggest that particle clumping is taking place under the effect of streaming instability (SI) in the 100 au ring. Even though in the presence of external isotropic turbulence this process might be hindered, we provide evidence that turbulence is non-isotropic in both rings and likely originating from mechanisms (such as ambipolar diffusion) that could ease particle clumping under SI. Finally, we determine the mass accretion rate under the assumption that the disc is in steady state and turbulence regulates angular momentum transport. Our results are in tension with spectroscopic measurements and suggest that other mechanisms might be responsible for accretion, in qualitative agreement with the detection of a magneto-centrifugal wind in this system. Applying our method to larger samples can be used to statistically assess if SI is a viable mechanism to form planetesimals in bright rings.