On the Origin of Banded Structure in Dusty Protoplanetary Discs: HL Tau and TW Hya

Abstract

Recent observations of HL Tau revealed remarkably detailed structure within the system's circumstellar disc. A range of hypotheses have been proposed to explain the morphology, including, e.g., planet-disc interactions, condensation fronts, and secular gravitational instabilities. While embedded planets seem to be able to explain some of the major structure in the disc through interactions with gas and dust, the substructure, such as low-contrast rings and bands, are not so easily reproduced. Here, we show that dynamical interactions between three planets (only two of which are modelled) and an initial population of large planetesimals can potentially explain both the major and minor banded features within the system. In this context, the small grains, which are coupled to the gas and reveal the disc morphology, are produced by the collisional evolution of the newly-formed planetesimals, which are ubiquitous in the system and are decoupled from the gas.

To appear in ApJ

References in corpus (5)

• Evidence of fast pebble growth near condensation fronts in the HL Tau protoplanetary disk
• A Triple Protostar System Formed via Fragmentation of a Gravitationally Unstable Disk
• Dynamical Stability of Imaged Planetary Systems in Formation: Application to HL Tau
• Fomalhaut b as a Dust Cloud: Frequent Collisions within the Fomalhaut Disk
• Simulations of Small Solid Accretion onto Planetesimals in the Presence of Gas

Cited by in corpus (8)

• Protoplanetary disk rings and gaps across ages and luminosities
• ALMA observations require slower Core Accretion runaway growth
• Gap opening by planets in discs with magnetised winds
• Architecture of three-planet systems predicted from the observed protoplanetary disk of HL Tau
• Pebble accretion in self-gravitating protostellar discs
• The Dissolution of Planetesimals in Electrostatic Fields
• Formation of ring-like structures in flared α-discs with X-ray/FUV photoevaporation
• Collision rates of planetesimals near mean-motion resonances