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Title: Wide Dust Gaps in Protoplanetary Disks Induced by Eccentric Planets: A Mass-eccentricity Degeneracy

Journal Article · · The Astrophysical Journal
ORCiD logo [1];  [2]; ORCiD logo [3];  [4]; ORCiD logo [5]
  1. Princeton Univ., NJ (United States); Tsinghua Univ., Beijing (China)
  2. Tsinghua Univ., Beijing (China)
  3. Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
  4. Univ. de Toulouse (France)
  5. Tsinghua Univ., Beijing (China); Univ. of California, Santa Cruz, CA (United States)

The tidal perturbation of embedded protoplanets on their natal disks has been widely attributed to be the cause of gap-ring structures in submillimeter images of protoplanetary disks around T Tauri stars. Numerical simulations of this process have been used to propose scaling of characteristic dust-gap width/gap-ring distance with respect to planet mass. Applying such scaling to analyze observed gap samples yields a continuous mass distribution for a rich population of hypothetical planets in the range of several Earth to Jupiter masses. In contrast, the conventional core-accretion scenario of planet formation predicts a bimodal mass function due to (1) the onset of runaway gas accretion above ~20 Earth masses and (2) suppression of accretion induced by gap opening. Here, we examine the dust disk response to the tidal perturbation of eccentric planets as a possible resolution of this paradox. Based on simulated gas and dust distributions, we show the gap-ring separation of Neptune-mass planets with small eccentricities might become comparable to that induced by Saturn-mass planets on circular orbits. Furthermore, this degeneracy may obliterate the discrepancy between the theoretical bimodal mass distribution and the observed continuous gap width distribution. Despite damping due to planet–disk interaction, modest eccentricity may be sustained either in the outer regions of relatively thick disks or through resonant excitation among multiple super Earths. Moreover, the ring-like dust distribution induced by planets with small eccentricities is axisymmetric even in low viscosity environments, consistent with the paucity of vortices in Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array images.

Research Organization:
Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
Grant/Contract Number:
89233218CNA000001
OSTI ID:
1866962
Report Number(s):
LA-UR-21-28245; TRN: US2306118
Journal Information:
The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 922, Issue 2; ISSN 0004-637X
Publisher:
IOP PublishingCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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