Hiding in the Shadows: Searching for Planets in Pre--transitional and Transitional Disks

Abstract

Transitional and pre--transitional disks can be explained by a number of mechanisms. This work aims to find a single observationally detectable marker that would imply a planetary origin for the gap and, therefore, indirectly indicate the presence of a young planet. N-body simulations were conducted to investigate the effect of an embedded planet of one Jupiter mass on the production of instantaneous collisional dust derived from a background planetesimal disk. Our new model allows us to predict the dust distribution and resulting observable markers with greater accuracy than previous work. Dynamical influences from a planet on a circular orbit are shown to enhance dust production in the disk interior and exterior to the planet orbit while removing planetesimals from the the orbit itself creating a clearly defined gap. In the case of an eccentric planet the gap opened by the planet is not as clear as the circular case but there is a detectable asymmetry in the dust disk.

Accepted to ApJL 25th September 2013. 4 figures, 1 table

References in corpus (11)

• Collisions between Gravity-Dominated Bodies: 2. The Diversity of Impact Outcomes during the End Stage of Planet Formation
• Discovery of Small-Scale Spiral Structures in the Disk of SAO 206462 (HD 135344B): Implications for the Physical State of the Disk from Spiral Density Wave Theory
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• Saturn Forms by Core Accretion in 3.4 Myr
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Cited by in corpus (4)

• Long Term Evolution of Planet-Induced Vortices in Protoplanetary Disks
• Numerically Predicted Indirect Signatures of Terrestrial Planet Formation
• Hiding in the Shadows II: Collisional Dust as Exoplanet Markers
• Collision rates of planetesimals near mean-motion resonances