arXiv subjects

Christophe Pinte

Publications and source records attributed to Christophe Pinte.

At least 73 records · Page 4Linked to original sources

arXiv2021

GW Ori: circumtriple rings and planets

GW Ori is a hierarchical triple star system with a misaligned circumtriple protoplanetary disc. Recent ALMA observations have identified three dust rings with a prominent gap at $100\, \rm au$ and misalignments between each of the rings. A break in the gas disc may be driven either by the torque from the triple star system or a planet that is massive enough to carve a gap in the disc. Once the disc is broken, the rings nodally precess on different timescales and become misaligned. We investigate the origins of the dust rings by means of $N$-body integrations and 3-dimensional hydrodynamic simulations. We find that for observationally-motivated parameters of protoplanetary discs, the disc does not break due to the torque from the star system. We suggest that the presence of a massive planet (or planets) in the disc separates the inner and outer disc. We conclude that the disc breaking in GW Ori is likely caused by undetected planets -- the first planet(s) in a circumtriple orbit.

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arXiv2021

A dusty filament and turbulent CO spirals in HD135344B-SAO206462

Planet-disc interactions build up local pressure maxima that may halt the radial drift of protoplanetary dust, and pile it up in rings and crescents. ALMA observations of the HD135344B disc revealed two rings in the thermal continuum stemming from ~mm-sized dust. At higher frequencies the inner ring is brighter relative to the outer ring, which is also shaped as a crescent rather than a full ring. In near-IR scattered light images, the disc is modulated by a 2-armed grand-design spiral originating inside the ALMA inner ring. Such structures may be induced by a massive companion evacuating the central cavity, and by a giant planet in the gap separating both rings, that channels the accretion of small dust and gas through its filamentary wakes while stopping the larger dust from crossing the gap. Here we present ALMA observations in the J=(2-1)CO isotopologue lines and in the adjacent continuum, with up to 12km baselines. Angular resolutions of 0.03" reveal the tentative detection of a filament connecting both rings, and which coincides with a local discontinuity in the pitch angle of the IR spiral, proposed previously as the location of the protoplanet driving this spiral. Line diagnostics suggest that turbulence, or superposed velocity components, is particularly strong in the spirals. The 12CO(2-1) 3-D rotation curve points at stellocentric accretion at radii within the inner dust ring, with a radial velocity of up to ~6%+-0.5% Keplerian, which corresponds to an excessively large accretion rate of ~2E-6M_sun/yr if all of the CO layer follows the 12CO(2-1) kinematics. This suggests that only the surface layers of the disc are undergoing accretion, and that the line broadening is due to superposed laminar flows.

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arXiv2021

Dust growth, fragmentation and self-induced dust traps in PHANTOM

We present the implementation of a dust growth and fragmentation module in the public Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) code PHANTOM. This module is made available for public use with this paper. The coagulation model considers locally monodisperse dust size distributions around single values that are carried by the SPH particles. Along with the presentation of the model, implementation and tests, we showcase growth and fragmentation in a few typical circumstellar disc simulations and revisit previous results. The module is also interfaced with the radiative transfer code MCFOST, which facilitates the comparison between simulations and ALMA observations by generating synthetic maps. Circumstellar disc simulations with growth and fragmentation reproduce the `self-induced dust trap' mechanism first proposed by Gonzalez et al., which supports its existence. Synthetic images of discs featuring this mechanism suggest it would be detectable by ALMA as a bright axisymmetric ring at several tens of au from the star. With this paper, our aim is to provide a public tool to be able to study and explore dust growth in a variety of applications related to planet formation.

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arXiv2021

Circumbinary and circumstellar discs around the eccentric binary IRAS 04158+2805 -- a testbed for binary-disc interaction

IRAS~04158+2805 has long been thought to be a very low mass T-Tauri star (VLMS) surrounded by a nearly edge-on, extremely large disc. Recent observations revealed that this source hosts a binary surrounded by an extended circumbinary disc with a central dust cavity. In this paper, we combine ALMA multi-wavelength observations of continuum and $^{12}$CO line emission, with H$α$ imaging and Keck astrometric measures of the binary to develop a coherent dynamical model of this system. The system features an azimuthal asymmetry detected at the western edge of the cavity in Band~7 observations and a wiggling outflow. Dust emission in ALMA Band 4 from the proximity of the individual stars suggests the presence of marginally resolved circumstellar discs. We estimate the binary orbital parameters from the measured arc of the orbit from Keck and ALMA astrometry. We further constrain these estimates using considerations from binary-disc interaction theory. We finally perform three SPH gas + dust simulations based on the theoretical constraints; we post-process the hydrodynamic output using radiative transfer Monte Carlo methods and directly compare the models with observations. Our results suggest that a highly eccentric $e\sim 0.5\textrm{--}0.7$ equal mass binary, with a semi-major axis of $\sim 55$ au, and small/moderate orbital plane vs. circumbinary disc inclination $θ\lesssim 30^\circ$ provides a good match with observations. A dust mass of $\sim 1.5\times 10^{-4} {\rm M_\odot}$ best reproduces the flux in Band 7 continuum observations. Synthetic CO line emission maps qualitatively capture both the emission from the central region and the non-Keplerian nature of the gas motion in the binary proximity.

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arXiv2021

Four new PLanetesimals Around TYpical and Pre-main seqUence Stars (PLATYPUS) Debris Discs at 8.8mm

Millimetre continuum observations of debris discs can provide insights into the physical and dynamical properties of the unseen planetesimals that these discs host. The material properties and collisional models of planetesimals leave their signature on the grain size distribution, which can be traced through the millimetre spectral index. We present 8.8 mm observations of the debris discs HD 48370, CPD 72 2713, HD 131488, and HD 32297 using the Australian Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) as part of the PLanetesimals Around TYpicalPre-main seqUence Stars (PLATYPUS) survey. We detect all four targets with a characteristic beam size of 5 arcseconds and derive a grain size distribution parameter that is consistent with collisional cascade models and theoretical predictions for parent planetesimal bodies where binding is dominated by self-gravity. We combine our sample with 19 other millimetre-wavelength detected debris discs from the literature and calculate a weighted mean grain size power law index which is close to analytical predictions for a classical steady state collisional cascade model. We suggest the possibility of two distributions of q in our debris disc sample; a broad distribution (where q is approximately 3.2 to 3.7) for "typical" debris discs (gas-poor/non-detection), and a narrow distribution (where q is less than 3.2) for bright gas-rich discs. Or alternatively, we suggest that there exists an observational bias between the grain size distribution parameter and absolute flux which may be attributed to the detection rates of faint debris discs at cm wavelengths.

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arXiv2021

Chemical signatures of a warped protoplanetary disc

Circumstellar discs may become warped or broken into distinct planes if there is a stellar or planetary companion with an orbit that is misaligned with respect to the disc. There is mounting observational evidence for protoplanetary discs with misaligned inner discs and warps that may be caused by such interactions with a previously undetected companion, giving us a tantalising indication of possible planets forming there. Hydrodynamical and radiative transfer models indicate that the temperature varies azimuthally in warped discs due to the variable angle at which the disc surface faces the star and this impacts the disc chemistry. We perform chemical modelling based on a hydrodynamical model of a protoplanetary disc with an embedded planet orbiting at a 12$^{\circ}$ inclination to the disc. Even for this small misalignment, abundances of species including CO and HCO$^+$ vary azimuthally and this results in detectable azimuthal variations in submillimetre line emission. Azimuthal variations in line emission may therefore indicate the presence of an unseen embedded companion. Nonaxisymmetric chemical abundances should be considered when interpreting molecular line maps of warped or shadowed protoplanetary discs.

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arXiv2021

The theory of kinks -- I. A semi-analytic model of velocity perturbations due to planet-disc interaction

A new technique to detect protoplanets is by observing the kinematics of the surrounding gas. Gravitational perturbations from a planet produce peculiar `kinks' in channel maps of different gas species. In this paper, we show that such kinks can be reproduced using semi-analytic models for the velocity perturbation induced by a planet. In doing so we i) confirm that the observed kinks are consistent with the planet-induced wake; ii) show how to quantify the planet mass from the kink amplitude; in particular, we show that the kink amplitude scales with the square root of the planet mass for channels far from the planet velocity, steepening to linear as the channels approach the planet; iii) show how to extend the theory to include the effect of damping, which may be needed in order to have localized kinks.

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arXiv2021

Non-Keplerian spirals, a gas-pressure dust trap and an eccentric gas cavity in the circumbinary disc around HD 142527

We present ALMA observations of the $^{12}$CO, $^{13}$CO, C$^{18}$O J=2-1 transitions and the 1.3\,mm continuum emission for the circumbinary disc around HD 142527, at an angular resolution of $\approx$\,0\farcs3. We observe multiple spiral structures in intensity, velocity and velocity dispersion for the $^{12}$CO and $^{13}$CO gas tracers. A newly detected $^{12}$CO spiral originates from the dust horseshoe, and is rotating at super-Keplerian velocity or vertically ascending, whilst the inter-spiral gas is rotating at sub-Keplerian velocities. This new spiral possibly connects to a previously identified spiral, thus spanning > 360$^\circ$. A spatial offset of ~30 au is observed between the $^{12}$CO and $^{13}$CO spirals, to which we hypothesize that the gas layers are propagating at different speeds (``surfing'') due to a non-zero vertical temperature gradient. Leveraging the varying optical depths between the CO isotopologues, we reconstruct temperature and column density maps of the outer disc. Gas surface density peaks at r\,$\approx$\,180\,au, coincident with the peak of continuum emission. Here the dust grains have a Stokes number of $\approx$\,1, confirming radial and azimuthal trapping in the horseshoe. We measure a cavity radius at half-maximum surface density of $\approx$\,100\,au, and a cavity eccentricity between 0.3 and 0.45.

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arXiv2021

The Anatomy of an Unusual Edge-on Protoplanetary Disk. II. Gas temperature and a warm outer region

We present high-resolution $^{12}$CO and $^{13}$CO 2-1 ALMA observations, as well as optical and near-infrared spectroscopy, of the highly-inclined protoplanetary disk around SSTC2D J163131.2-242627. The spectral type we derive for the source is consistent with a $\rm 1.2 \, M_{\odot}$ star inferred from the ALMA observations. Despite its massive circumstellar disk, we find little to no evidence for ongoing accretion on the star. The CO maps reveal a disk that is unusually compact along the vertical direction, consistent with its appearance in scattered light images. The gas disk extends about twice as far away as both the submillimeter continuum and the optical scattered light. CO is detected from two surface layers separated by a midplane region in which CO emission is suppressed, as expected from freeze-out in the cold midplane. We apply a modified version of the Topographically Reconstructed Distribution method presented by Dutrey et al. 2017 to derive the temperature structure of the disk. We find a temperature in the CO-emitting layers and the midplane of $\sim$33 K and $\sim$20 K at $\rm R<200$ au, respectively. Outside of $\rm R>200$ au, the disk's midplane temperature increases to $\sim$30 K, with a nearly vertically isothermal profile. The transition in CO temperature coincides with a dramatic reduction in the sub-micron and sub-millimeter emission from the disk. We interpret this as interstellar UV radiation providing an additional source of heating to the outer part of the disk.

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arXiv2021

Dust Traps and the Formation of Cavities in Transition Discs: A millimetre to sub-millimetre comparison survey

The origin of the inner dust cavities observed in transition discs remains unknown. The segregation of dust and size of the cavity is expected to vary depending on which clearing mechanism dominates grain evolution. We present the results from the Discs Down Under program, an 8.8 mm continuum Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) survey targeting 15 transition discs with large (> 20 au) cavities, and compare the resulting dust emission to Atacama Large millimetre/sub-millimetre Array (ALMA) observations. Our ATCA observations resolve the inner cavity for 8 of the 14 detected discs. We fit the visibilities and reconstruct 1D radial brightness models for 10 sources with a S/N > 5sigma. We find that, for sources with a resolved cavity in both wavebands, the 8.8 mm and sub-mm brightness distributions peak at the same radius from the star. We suggest that a similar cavity size for 8.8 mm and sub-mm dust grains is due to a dust trap induced by the presence of a companion.

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arXiv2020

Hiding Signatures of Gravitational Instability in Protoplanetary Discs with Planets

We carry out three dimensional SPH simulations to show that a migrating giant planet strongly suppresses the spiral structure in self-gravitating discs. We present mock ALMA continuum observations which show that in the absence of a planet, spiral arms due to gravitational instability are easily observed. Whereas in the presence of a giant planet, the spiral structures are suppressed by the migrating planet resulting in a largely axisymmetric disc with a ring and gap structure. Our modelling of the gas kinematics shows that the planet's presence could be inferred, for example, using optically thin 13C16O. Our results show that it is not necessary to limit the gas mass of discs by assuming high dust-to-gas mass ratios in order to explain a lack of spiral features that would otherwise be expected in high mass discs.

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arXiv2020

A smoothed particle hydrodynamics algorithm for multigrain dust with separate sets of particles

We present a method for simulating the dynamics of a mixture of gas and multiple species of large Stokes number dust grains, typical of evolved protoplanetary discs and debris discs. The method improves upon earlier methods, in which only a single grain size could be represented, by capturing the differential backreaction of multiple dust species on the gas. This effect is greater for large dust-to-gas ratios that may be expected in the later stages of the protoplanetary disc life. We benchmark the method against analytic solutions for linear waves, drag and shocks in dust-gas mixtures, and radial drift in a protoplanetary disc showing that the method is robust and accurate.

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arXiv2020

Planet migration, resonant locking and accretion streams in PDS70: Comparing models and data

The disc surrounding PDS 70, with two directly imaged embedded giant planets, is an ideal laboratory to study planet-disc interaction. We present three-dimensional smoothed particle hydrodynamics simulations of the system. In our simulations, planets, which are free to migrate and accrete mass, end up in a locked resonant configuration that is dynamically stable. We show that features observed at infrared (scattered light) and millimetre (thermal continuum) wavelengths are naturally explained by the accretion stream onto the outer planet, without requiring a circumplanetary disc around planet c. We post-processed our near-infrared synthetic images in order to account for observational biases known to affect high-contrast images. Our successful reproduction of the observations indicates that planet-disc dynamical interactions alone are sufficient to explain the observations of PDS 70.

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arXiv2020

Spirals, shadows & precession in HD 100453 -- II. The hidden companion

The protoplanetary disc HD 100453 exhibits a curious combination of spirals, shadows and a relative misalignment between the observed outer disc and inferred inner disc. This disc is accompanied by a secondary star on a bound orbit exterior to the disc. Recent observations have suggested there may be an additional low-mass companion residing within the disc inner cavity. In our companion paper the orbit of the secondary was shown to be misaligned by 61 degrees to the plane of the outer disc. Here we investigate the properties of the inner companion and the origin of the misalignment between the inner and outer disc. Using numerical simulations and synthetic observations, we show that the disc structure and kinematics are consistent with a $\lesssim$ 5 Jupiter mass planet located at 15-20au. We find that the disc evolution over around 50 binary orbits (about 10$^5$ yrs) is governed by differential precession and to a lesser extent, the Kozai-Lidov effect. In our proposed model the misalignment observed between the outer and inner disc arises naturally as a result of the misaligned outer companion driving the outer disc to precess more rapidly than the inner disc.

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arXiv2020

Spirals, shadows & precession in HD 100453 -- I. The orbit of the binary

In recent years, several protoplanetary discs have been observed to exhibit spirals, both in scattered light and (sub)millimetre continuum data. The HD 100453 binary star system hosts such a disc around its primary. Previous work has argued that the spirals were caused by the gravitational interaction of the secondary, which was assumed to be on a circular orbit, coplanar with the disc (meaning here the large outer disc, as opposed to the very small inner disc). However, recent observations of the CO gas emission were found incompatible with this assumption. In this paper, we run SPH simulations of the gas and dust disc for seven orbital configurations taken from astrometric fits and compute synthetic observations from their results. Comparing to high-resolution ALMA $^{12}$CO data, we find that the best agreement is obtained for an orbit with eccentricity $e=0.32$ and semi-major axis $a=207$ au, inclined by $61^\circ$ relative to the disc plane. The large misalignment between the disc and orbit planes is compatible with the tidal evolution of a circumprimary disc in an eccentric, unequal-mass binary star.

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arXiv2020

Visualizing the Kinematics of Planet Formation

A stunning range of substructures in the dust of protoplanetary disks is routinely observed across a range of wavelengths. These gaps, rings and spirals are highly indicative of a population of unseen planets, hinting at the possibility of current observational facilities being able to capture planet-formation in action. Over the last decade, our understanding of the influence of a young planet on the dynamical structure of its parental disk has progressed significantly, revealing a host of potentially observable features which would betray the presence of a deeply embedded planet. In concert, recent observations have shown that subtle perturbations in the kinematic structure of protoplanetary disks are found in multiple sources, potentially the characteristic disturbances associated with embedded planets. In this work, we review the theoretical background of planet-disk interactions, focusing on the kinematical features, and the current methodologies used to observe these interactions in spatially and spectrally resolved observations. We discuss the potential pit falls of such kinematical detections of planets, providing best-practices for imaging and analysing interferometric data, along with a set of criteria to use as a benchmark for any claimed detection of embedded planets. We finish with a discussion on the current state of simulations in regard to planet-disk interactions, highlighting areas of particular interest and future directions which will provide the most significant impact in our search for embedded planets. This work is the culmination of the 'Visualizing the Kinematics of Planet Formation' workshop, held in October 2019 at the Center for Computational Astrophysics at the Flatiron Institute in New York City.

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arXiv2020

Observing protoplanetary discs with the Square Kilometre Array -- I. Characterising pebble substructure caused by forming planets

High angular resolution observations of discs at mm wavelengths (on scales of a few au) are now commonplace, but there is a current lack of a comparable angular resolution for observations at cm wavelengths. This presents a significant barrier to improving our understanding of planet formation, in particular how dust grains grow from mm to cm sizes. In this paper, we examine the ability of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) to observe dust substructure in a young, planet-forming disc at cm wavelengths. We use dusty hydrodynamics and continuum radiative transfer to predict the distribution and emission of 1 cm dust grains (or pebbles) within the disc, and simulate continuum observations with the current SKA1-MID design baseline at frequencies of 12.5 GHz (Band 5b, ~2.4 cm) on 5-10 au scales. The SKA will provide high-fidelity observations of the cm dust emission substructure in discs for integration times totalling 100's of hours. Radial structure can be obtained at a sufficient resolution and S/N from shorter (10's of hours) integration times by azimuthal averaging in the image plane. By modelling the intensity distribution directly in the visibility plane, it is possible to recover a similar level of (axisymmetric) structural detail from observations with integration times 1-2 orders of magnitude lower than required for high-fidelity imaging. Our results demonstrate that SKA1-MID will provide crucial constraints on the distribution and morphology of the raw material for building planets, the pebbles in protoplanetary discs.

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arXiv2020

Are the spiral arms in the MWC 758 protoplanetary disc driven by a companion inside the cavity?

Spiral arms in protoplanetary discs are thought to be linked to the presence of companions. We test the hypothesis that the double spiral arm morphology observed in the transition disc MWC 758 can be generated by an $\approx 10$ M$_{\rm Jup}$ companion on an eccentric orbit internal to the spiral arms. Previous studies on MWC 758 have assumed an external companion. We compare simulated observations from three dimensional hydrodynamics simulations of disc-companion interaction to scattered light, infrared and CO molecular line observations, taking into account observational biases. The inner companion hypothesis is found to explain the double spiral arms, as well as several additional features seen in MWC 758 -- the arc in the northwest, substructures inside the spiral arms, the cavity in CO isotopologues, and the twist in the kinematics. Testable predictions include detection of fainter spiral structure, detection of a point source south-southeast of the primary, and proper motion of the spiral arms.

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