The origin of tail-like structures around protoplanetary disks

Abstract

We study the origin of tail-like structures recently detected around the disk of SU Aurigae and several FU~Orionis-type stars. Dynamic protostellar disks featuring ejections of gaseous clumps and quiescent protoplanetary disks experiencing a close encounter with an intruder star were modeled using the numerical hydrodynamics code FEOSAD. Both the gas and dust dynamics were taken into account, including dust growth and mutual friction between the gas and dust components. Only plane-of-the-disk encounters were considered. Ejected clumps produce a unique type of tail that is characterized by a bow-shock shape. Such tails originate from the supersonic motion of ejected clumps through the dense envelope that often surrounds young gravitationally unstable protostellar disks. The ejected clumps either sit at the head of the tail-like structure or disperse if their mass is insufficient to withstand the head wind of the envelope. On the other hand, close encounters with quiescent protoplanetary disks produce three types of the tail-like structure; we define these as pre-collisional, post-collisional, and spiral tails. These tails can in principle be distinguished from one another by particular features of the gas and dust flow in and around them. We find that the brown-dwarf-mass intruders do not capture circumintruder disks during the encounter, while the subsolar-mass intruders can acquire appreciable circumintruder disks with elevated dust-to-gas ratios, which can ease their observational detection. However, this is true only for prograde collisions; the retrograde intruders fail to collect appreciable amounts of gas or dust from the disk of the target. The predicted mass of dust in the model tail-like structures is higher than what was inferred for similar structures in SU~Aur, FU~Ori, and Z~CMa, making their observational detection feasible. Abridged.

arXiv commentAccepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics

References in corpus (37)

• First Results from High Angular Resolution ALMA Observations Toward the HL Tau Region
• Planet-disk interaction and orbital evolution
• The Disk Substructures at High Angular Resolution Project (DSHARP): V. Interpreting ALMA maps of protoplanetary disks in terms of a dust model
• The properties of brown dwarfs and low-mass hydrogen-burning stars formed by disc fragmentation
• Spiral Density Waves in a Young Protoplanetary Disk
• The burst mode of accretion and disk fragmentation in the early embedded stages of star formation
• The Origin of Episodic Accretion Bursts in the Early Stages of Star Formation
• Brown dwarf formation by gravitational fragmentation of massive, extended protostellar discs
• The Spectral Energy Distribution of HH30 IRS: Constraining The Circumstellar Dust Size Distribution
• The evidence of radio polarization induced by the radiative grain alignment and self-scattering of dust grains in a protoplanetary disk
• On the existence of accretion-driven bursts in massive star formation
• Formation of giant planets and brown dwarfs on wide orbits
• Accretion Outbursts in Self-gravitating Protoplanetary Disks
• Infall-Driven Protostellar Accretion and the Solution to the Luminosity Problem
• Secular evolution of viscous and self-gravitating circumstellar discs
• A tidal encounter caught in the act: modelling a star-disc fly-by in the young RW Aurigae system
• Circumstellar Disks of the Most Vigorously Accreting Young Stars
• The early evolution of viscous and self-gravitating circumstellar disks with a dust component
• Tidally induced brown dwarf and planet formation in circumstellar discs
• Cloudlet capture by Transitional Disk and FU Orionis stars
• The Jeans Mass as a Fundamental Measure of Self-Gravitating Disc Fragmentation and Initial Fragment Mass
• Flybys in protoplanetary discs: II. Observational signatures
• Multiple Stellar Fly-Bys Sculpting the Circumstellar Architecture in RW Aurigae
• Signatures of Gravitational Instability in Resolved Images of Protostellar Disks
• Near-Infrared High-Resolution Imaging Polarimetry of FU Ori-Type Objects: Towards A Unified Scheme for Low-Mass Protostellar Evolution
• Gravitational fragmentation and formation of giant protoplanets on tens-of-au orbits
• Stellar Encounters in the Context of Outburst Phenomena
• Gravitoviscous protoplanetary disks with a dust component. I. The importance of the inner sub-au region
• A Tail Structure Associated with Protoplanetary Disk around SU Aurigae
• BETHE-Hydro: An Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian Multi-dimensional Hydrodynamics Code for Astrophysical Simulations
• Dynamical Gaseous Rings in Global Simulations of Protoplanetary Disk Formation
• The role of the energy equation in the fragmentation of protostellar discs during stellar encounters
• Ejection of gaseous clumps from gravitationally unstable protostellar disks
• Formation of freely floating sub-stellar objects via close encounters
• Near-IR High-Resolution Imaging Polarimetry of the SU Aur Disk: Clues for Tidal Tails?
• Revealing dust segregation in protoplanetary discs with the help of multi-frequency spectral index maps
• Interpreting Brightness Asymmetries in Transition Disks: Vortex at Dead Zone or Planet Carved Gap Edges?

Cited by in corpus (13)

• Disk Evolution Study Through Imaging of Nearby Young Stars (DESTINYS): Late infall causing disk misalignment and dynamic structures in SU Aur
• Misaligned disks induced by infall
• Reflections on nebulae around young stars: A systematic search for late-stage infall of material onto Class II disks
• A likely flyby of binary protostar Z CMa caught in action
• Distinguishing between different mechanisms of FU-Orionis-type luminosity outbursts
• Discovery of a mid-infrared protostellar outburst of exceptional amplitude
• Exciting spiral arms in protoplanetary discs from flybys
• First observed interaction of the circumstellar envelope of an S-star with the environment of Sgr A*
• Disk Evolution Study Through Imaging of Nearby Young Stars (DESTINYS): Diverse outcomes of binary-disk interactions
• What governs the spin distribution of very young < 1 Myr low mass stars
• Could kilomasers pinpoint supermassive stars?
• Molecules with ALMA at Planet-forming Scales (MAPS) XIX. Spiral Arms, a Tail, and Diffuse Structures Traced by CO around the GM Aur Disk
• Simulation of images of protoplanetary disks after collision with free-floating planets