Puffed-up Edges of Planet-opened Gaps in Protoplanetary Disks. II. The Role of the Planet's Orbital Eccentricity

Abstract

Eccentric planets constitute a large population of known exoplanets and may drive significant substructures in protoplanetary disks through planet-disk interactions if their eccentricities are excited early in the planet formation process. In this paper, we investigate the impact of a planet's orbital eccentricity on gas and dust structures in protoplanetary disks using three-dimensional multifluid hydrodynamic simulations. We find that an eccentric planet can drive stronger meridional gas circulation around the planet-opened gap, which significantly enhances the dust puff-up feature at the gap edge relative to the circular-orbit case. The planet-induced gap can also become highly leaky to dust grains when the planet is eccentric, allowing dust grains to be transported radially and thereby fill the gap. Furthermore, dust rings composed of pebble-sized grains are expected to become both larger and radially wider when the planet is eccentric, with this trend becoming more pronounced at higher planet eccentricities. Overall, our results suggest that a planet's orbital eccentricity can play a significant role in shaping gas and dust structures in protoplanetary disks, with important implications for planet formation theory and disk observations of the WISPIT 2 system.