Warping Away Gravitational Instabilities in Protoplanetary Discs

Abstract

We perform 3D SPH simulations of warped, non-coplanar gravitationally unstable discs to show that as the warp propagates through the self-gravitating disc, it heats up the disc rendering it gravitationally stable. Thus losing their spiral structure and appearing completely axisymmetric. In their youth, protoplanetary discs are expected to be massive and self-gravitating, which results in non-axisymmetric spiral structures. However recent observations of young protoplanetary discs with ALMA have revealed that discs with large-scale spiral structure are rarely observed in the midplane. Instead, axisymmetric discs with some also having ring & gap structures are more commonly observed. Our work invloving warps, non-coplanar disc structures that are expected to commonly occur in young discs, potentially resolves this discrepancy between observations and theoretical predictions. We demonstrate that they are able to suppress the large-scale spiral structure of self-gravitating protoplanetary discs.

Accepted for publication in ApJ

References in corpus (17)

• The NumPy array: a structure for efficient numerical computation
• SPLASH: An interactive visualisation tool for Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics simulations
• Spiral Density Waves in a Young Protoplanetary Disk
• On the diversity and statistical properties of protostellar discs
• Inviscid SPH
• Shadows and spirals in the protoplanetary disk HD 100453
• The Disk Substructures at High Angular Resolution Project (DSHARP): III. Spiral Structures in the Millimeter Continuum of the Elias 27, IM Lup, and WaOph 6 Disks
• On the Bardeen-Petterson Effect in black hole accretion discs
• Warp diffusion in accretion discs: a numerical investigation
• Tidally induced brown dwarf and planet formation in circumstellar discs
• Spiral Arms and a Massive Dust Disk with non-Keplerian Kinematics: Possible Evidence for Gravitational Instability in the Disk of Elias 2-27
• CO emission tracing a warp or radial flow within $\lesssim$ 100 au in the HD 100546 protoplanetary disk
• Cluster dynamics largely shapes protoplanetary disc sizes
• 13C17O suggests gravitational instability in the HL Tau disc
• The role of the energy equation in the fragmentation of protostellar discs during stellar encounters
• HD 143006: circumbinary planet or misaligned disc?
• Hiding Signatures of Gravitational Instability in Protoplanetary Discs with Planets

Cited by in corpus (6)

• Vertically extended and asymmetric CN emission in the Elias 2-27 protoplanetary disk
• Asymmetric Signatures of Warps in Edge-on Disks
• MINDS. Young binary systems with JWST/MIRI: Variable water-rich primaries and extended emission
• Continuing to Hide Signatures of Gravitational Instability in Protoplanetary Discs with Planets
• The dynamics of self-gravity wakes in the Mimas 5:3 bending wave: modifying the linear theory
• Gravitational instability in planet-forming discs