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Zhaohuan Zhu

Publications and source records attributed to Zhaohuan Zhu.

At least 91 records · Page 5Linked to original sources

HST/WFC3 H$α$ Direct-Imaging Detection of a Point-like Source in the Disk Cavity of AB Aur

Accreting protoplanets enable the direct characterization of planet formation. As part of a high-contrast imaging search for accreting planets with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Wide Field Camera 3, we present H$α$ images of AB Aurigae (AB Aur), a Herbig Ae/Be star harboring a transition disk. The data were collected in two epochs of direct-imaging observations using the F656N narrow-band filter. After subtracting the point spread function of the primary star, we identify a point-like source located at a P.A. of $182.5^{\circ}\pm1.4^{\circ}$ and a separation of $600\pm22$~mas relative to the host star. The position is consistent with the recently identified protoplanet candidate AB Aur b. The source is visible in two individual epochs separated by ${\sim}50$ days and the H$α$ intensities in the two epochs agree. The H$α$ flux density is $F_ν=1.5\pm0.4$~mJy, $3.2\pm0.9$ times of the optical continuum determined by published HST/STIS photometry. In comparison to PDS 70 b and c, the H$α$ excess emission is weak. The central star is accreting and the stellar H$α$ emission has a similar line-to-continuum ratio as seen in AB Aur b. We conclude that both planetary accretion and scattered stellar light are possible sources of the H$α$ emission, and the H$α$ detection alone does not validate AB Aur b as an accreting protoplanet. Disentangling the origin of the emission will be crucial for probing planet formation in the AB Aur disk.

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Formation of Dust Rings and Gaps in Non-ideal MHD Disks Through Meridional Gas Flows

Rings and gaps are commonly observed in the dust continuum emission of young stellar disks. Previous studies have shown that substructures naturally develop in the weakly ionized gas of magnetized, non-ideal MHD disks. The gas rings are expected to trap large mm/cm-sized grains through pressure gradient-induced radial dust-gas drift. Using 2D (axisymmetric) MHD simulations that include ambipolar diffusion and dust grains of three representative sizes (1~mm, 3.3~mm, and 1~cm), we show that the grains indeed tend to drift radially relative to the gas towards the centers of the gas rings, at speeds much higher than in a smooth disk because of steeper pressure gradients. However, their spatial distribution is primarily controlled by meridional gas motions, which are typically much faster than the dust-gas drift. In particular, the grains that have settled near the midplane are carried rapidly inwards by a fast accretion stream to the inner edges of the gas rings, where they are lifted up by the gas flows diverted away from the midplane by a strong poloidal magnetic field. The flow pattern in our simulation provides an attractive explanation for the meridional flows recently inferred in HD 163296 and other disks, including both "collapsing" regions where the gas near the disk surface converges towards the midplane and a disk wind. Our study highlights the prevalence of the potentially observable meridional flows associated with the gas substructure formation in non-ideal MHD disks and their crucial role in generating rings and gaps in dust.

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Gemini-LIGHTS: Herbig Ae/Be and massive T-Tauri protoplanetary disks imaged with Gemini Planet Imager

We present the complete sample of protoplanetary disks from the Gemini- Large Imaging with GPI Herbig/T-tauri Survey (Gemini-LIGHTS) which observed bright Herbig Ae/Be stars and T-Tauri stars in near-infrared polarized light to search for signatures of disk evolution and ongoing planet formation. The 44 targets were chosen based on their near- and mid-infrared colors, with roughly equal numbers of transitional, pre-transitional, and full disks. Our approach explicitly did not favor well-known, "famous" disks or those observed by ALMA, resulting in a less-biased sample suitable to probe the major stages of disk evolution during planet formation. Our optimized data reduction allowed polarized flux as low as 0.002% of the stellar light to be detected, and we report polarized scattered light around 80% of our targets. We detected point-like companions for 47% of the targets, including 3 brown dwarfs (2 confirmed, 1 new), and a new super-Jupiter mass candidate around V1295 Aql. We searched for correlations between the polarized flux and system parameters, finding a few clear trends: presence of a companion drastically reduces the polarized flux levels, far-IR excess correlates with polarized flux for non-binary systems, and systems hosting disks with ring structures have stellar masses $<$ 3 Msun. Our sample also included four hot, dusty "FS CMa" systems and we detected large-scale ($>100$ au) scattered light around each, signs of extreme youth for these enigmatic systems. Science-ready images are publicly available through multiple distribution channels using a new FITS file standard jointly developed with members of the VLT/SPHERE team.

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ALMA Discovery of a Disk around the Planetary-mass Companion SR 12 c

We report an Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array 0.88 mm (Band 7) continuum detection of the accretion disk around SR 12 c, an $\sim$11 $M_{\rm Jup}$ planetary-mass companion (PMC) orbiting its host binary at 980 au. This is the first submillimeter detection of a circumplanetary disk around a wide PMC. The disk has a flux density of $127 \pm14~μ$Jy and is not resolved by the $\sim$0.1" beam, so the dust disk radius is likely less than 5 au and can be much smaller if the dust continuum is optically thick. If, however, the dust emission is optically thin, then the SR 12 c disk has a comparable dust mass to the circumplanetary disk around PDS 70 c but is about five times lower than that of the $\sim$12 $M_{\rm Jup}$ free-floating OTS 44. This suggests that disks around bound and unbound planetary-mass objects can span a wide range of masses. The gas mass estimated with an accretion rate of $10^{-11}~M_\odot$ yr$^{-1}$ implies a gas-to-dust ratio higher than 100. If cloud absorption is not significant, a nondetection of ${}^{12}$CO(3-2) implies a compact gas disk around SR 12 c. Future sensitive observations may detect more PMC disks at 0.88 mm flux densities of $\lesssim$100 $μ$Jy.

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Direct Formation of Planetary Embryos in Self-Gravitating Disks

Giant planets have been discovered at large separations from the central star. Moreover, a striking number of young circumstellar disks have gas and/or dust gaps at large orbital separations, potentially driven by embedded planetary objects. To form massive planets at large orbital separations through core accretion within disk lifetime, however, an early solid body to seed pebble and gas accretion is desirable. Young protoplanetary disks are likely self-gravitating, and these gravitoturbulent disks may efficiently concentrate solid material at the midplane driven by spiral waves. We run 3D local hydrodynamical simulations of gravitoturbulent disks with Lagrangian dust particles to determine whether particle and gas self-gravity can lead to the formation of dense solid bodies, seeding later planet formation. When self-gravity between dust particles is included, solids of size $\mathrm{St} = 0.1$ to $1$ concentrate within the gravitoturbulent spiral features and collapse under their own self-gravity into dense clumps up to several $M_{\oplus}$ in mass at wide orbits. Simulations with dust that drift most efficiently, $\mathrm{St}=1$, form the most massive clouds of particles, while simulations with smaller dust particles, $\mathrm{St}=0.1$, have clumps with masses an order of magnitude lower. When the effect of dust backreaction onto the gas is included, dust clumps become smaller by a factor of a few but more numerous. The existence of large solid bodies at an early stage of the disk can accelerate the planet formation process, particularly at wide orbital separations, and potentially explain planets distant from the central stars and young protoplanetary disks with substructures.

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Investigating the Future Potential of an Upgraded ALMA to Image Planet Forming Disks at Sub-au Scales

In recent years, ALMA has been able to observe large-scale substructures within protoplanetary disks. Comparison with the predictions from models of planet-disk interaction has indicated that most of these disk substructures can be explained by the presence of planets with the mass of Neptune or larger at orbital radii of $\approx 5 - 100$ au. Better resolution is needed to observe structures closer to the star, where terrestrial planets are expected to form, as well as structures opened by planets with masses lower than Neptune. We investigate the capabilities of a possible extension to ALMA that would double the longest baseline lengths in the array to detect and resolve disk substructures opened by Earth-mass and Super Earth planets at orbital radii of $1-5$ au. By simulating observations of a family of disk models using this extended configuration in ALMA Bands 6 and 7, we show that an upgraded ALMA would detect gaps in disks formed by super-Earths as close as 1 au, as well as Earth-mass planets down to $2-3$ au from the young host stars in nearby star forming regions.

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Maximum Temperatures in Evolving Protoplanetary Discs and Composition of Planetary Building Blocks

The maximum temperature and radial temperature profile in a protoplanetary disc are important for the condensation of different elements in the disc. We simulate the evolution of a set of protoplanetary discs from the collapse of their progenitor molecular cloud cores as well as the dust decoupling within the discs as they evolve. We show how the initial properties of the cloud cores affect the thermal history of the protoplanetary discs using a simple viscous disc model. Our results show that the maximum midplane temperature in the disc occurs within 0.5 AU. It increases with the initial cloud temperature and decreases with its angular velocity and the viscosity of the disc. From the observed properties of the molecular cloud cores we find the median value of the maximum temperature is around 1250 K, with roughly 90% of them being less than 1500 K - a value that is lower than the 50% condensation temperatures of most refractory elements. Therefore, only cloud cores with high initial temperatures or low angular velocities and/or low viscosities within the planet-forming discs will result in refractory-rich planetesimals. To reproduce the volatile depletion pattern of CM, CO, and CV chondrites and the terrestrial planets in Solar system, one must either have rare properties of the initial molecular cloud cores like high core temperature, or other sources of energy to heat the disc to sufficiently high temperatures. Alternatively, the volatile depletion observed in these chondrites may be inherited from the progenitor molecular cloud.

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A Simple Time-Dependent Method for Calculating Spirals: Applications to Eccentric Planets in Protoplanetary discs

Spirals in protoplanetary discs have been used to locate the potential planet in discs. Since only the spiral shape from a circularly orbiting perturber is known, most previous works assume that the planet is in a circular orbit. We develop a simple semi-analytical method to calculate the shape of the spirals launched by an eccentric planet. We assume that the planet emits wavelets during its orbit, and the wave fronts of these propagating wavelets form the spirals. The resulting spiral shape from this simple method agrees with numerical simulations exceptionally well. The spirals excited by an eccentric planet can detach from the planet, bifurcate, or even cross each other, which are all reproduced by this simple method. The spiral's bifurcation point corresponds to the wavelet that is emitted when the planet's radial speed reaches the disc's sound speed. Multiple spirals can be excited by an eccentric planet (more than 5 spirals when $e\gtrsim0.2$). The pitch angle and pattern speed are different between different spirals and can vary significantly across one spiral. The spiral wakes launched by high-mass eccentric planets steepen to spiral shocks and the crossing of spiral shocks leads to distorted or broken spirals. With the same mass, a more eccentric planet launches weaker spirals and induces a shallower gap over a long period of time. The observed unusually large/small pitch angles of some spirals, the irregular multiple spirals, and the different pattern speeds between different spirals may suggest the existence of eccentric perturbers in protoplanetary discs.

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PGNets: Planet mass prediction using convolutional neural networks for radio continuum observations of protoplanetary disks

We developed Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) to rapidly and directly infer the planet mass from radio dust continuum images. Substructures induced by young planets in protoplanetary disks can be used to infer the potential young planets' properties. Hydrodynamical simulations have been used to study the relationships between the planet's properties and these disk features. However, these attempts either fine-tuned numerical simulations to fit one protoplanetary disk at a time, which was time-consuming, or azimuthally averaged simulation results to derive some linear relationships between the gap width/depth and the planet mass, which lost information on asymmetric features in disks. To cope with these disadvantages, we developed Planet Gap neural Networks (PGNets) to infer the planet mass from 2D images. We first fit the gridded data in Zhang et al. (2018) as a classification problem. Then, we quadrupled the data set by running additional simulations with near-randomly sampled parameters, and derived the planet mass and disk viscosity together as a regression problem. The classification approach can reach an accuracy of 92\%, whereas the regression approach can reach 1$σ$ as 0.16 dex for planet mass and 0.23 dex for disk viscosity. We can reproduce the degeneracy scaling $α$ $\propto$ $M_p^3$ found in the linear fitting method, which means that the CNN method can even be used to find degeneracy relationship. The gradient-weighted class activation mapping effectively confirms that PGNets use proper disk features to constrain the planet mass. We provide programs for PGNets and the traditional fitting method from Zhang et al. (2018), and discuss each method's advantages and disadvantages.

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Streaming Instability with Multiple Dust Species: II. Turbulence and Dust-Gas Dynamics at Nonlinear Saturation

The streaming instability is a fundamental process that can drive dust-gas dynamics and ultimately planetesimal formation in protoplanetary discs. As a linear instability, it has been shown that its growth with a distribution of dust sizes can be classified into two distinct regimes, fast- and slow-growth, depending on the dust-size distribution and the total dust-to-gas density ratio $ε$. Using numerical simulations of an unstratified disc, we bring three cases in different regimes into nonlinear saturation. We find that the saturation states of the two fast-growth cases are similar to its single-species counterparts. The one with maximum dimensionless stopping time $τ_\mathrm{s,max}=0.1$ and $ε=2$ drives turbulent vertical dust-gas vortices, while the other with $τ_\mathrm{s,max}=2$ and $ε=0.2$ leads to radial traffic jams and filamentary structures of dust particles. The dust density distribution for the former is flat in low densities, while the one for the latter has a low-end cutoff. By contrast, the one slow-growth case results in a virtually quiescent state. Moreover, we find that in the fast-growth regime, significant dust segregation by size occurs, with large particles moving towards dense regions while small particles remain in the diffuse regions, and the mean radial drift of each dust species is appreciably altered from the (initial) drag-force equilibrium. The former effect may skew the spectral index derived from multi-wavelength observations and change the initial size distribution of a pebble cloud for planetesimal formation. The latter along with turbulent diffusion may influence the radial transport and mixing of solid materials in young protoplanetary discs.

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Self-consistent ring model in protoplanetary disks: temperature dips and substructure formation

Rings and gaps are ubiquitous in protoplanetary disks. Larger dust grains will concentrate in gaseous rings more compactly due to stronger aerodynamic drag. However, the effects of dust concentration on the ring's thermal structure have not been explored. Using MCRT simulations, we self-consistently construct ring models by iterating the ring's thermal structure, hydrostatic equilibrium, and dust concentration. We set up rings with two dust populations having different settling and radial concentration due to their different sizes. We find two mechanisms that can lead to temperature dips around the ring. When the disk is optically thick, the temperature drops outside the ring, which is the shadowing effect found in previous works adopting a single-dust population in the disk. When the disk is optically thin, a second mechanism due to excess cooling of big grains is found. Big grains cool more efficiently, which leads to a moderate temperature dip within the ring where big dust resides. This dip is close to the center of the ring. Such temperature dip within the ring can lead to particle pile-up outside the ring and feedback to the dust distribution and thermal structure. We couple the MCRT calculations with a 1D dust evolution model and show that the ring evolves to a different shape and may even separate to several rings. Overall, dust concentration within rings has moderate effects on the disk's thermal structure, and self-consistent model is crucial not only for protoplanetary disk observations but also for planetesimal and planet formation studies.

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Global 3D Radiation Hydrodynamic Simulations of Proto-Jupiter's Convective Envelope

The core accretion model of giant planet formation has been challenged by the discovery of recycling flows between the planetary envelope and the disc that can slow or stall envelope accretion. We carry out 3D radiation hydrodynamic simulations with an updated opacity compilation to model the proto-Jupiter's envelope. To isolate the 3D effects of convection and recycling, we simulate both isolated spherical envelopes and envelopes embedded in discs. The envelopes are heated at given rates to achieve steady states, enabling comparisons with 1D models. We vary envelope properties to obtain both radiative and convective solutions. Using a passive scalar, we observe significant mass recycling on the orbital timescale. For a radiative envelope, recycling can only penetrate from the disc surface until $\sim$0.1-0.2 planetary Hill radii, while for a convective envelope, the convective motion can "dredge up" the deeper part of the envelope so that the entire convective envelope is recycled efficiently. This recycling, however, has only limited effects on the envelopes' thermal structure. The radiative envelope embedded in the disc has identical structure as the isolated envelope. The convective envelope has a slightly higher density when it is embedded in the disc. We introduce a modified 1D approach which can fully reproduce our 3D simulations. With our updated opacity and 1D model, we recompute Jupiter's envelope accretion with a 10 $M_{\oplus}$ core, and the timescale to runaway accretion is shorter than the disc lifetime as in prior studies. Finally, we discuss the implications of the efficient recycling on the observed chemical abundances of the planetary atmosphere (especially for super-Earths and mini-Neptunes).

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Limits on Millimeter Continuum Emission from Circumplanetary Material in the DSHARP Disks

We present a detailed analysis for a subset of the high resolution (~35 mas, or 5 au) ALMA observations from the Disk Substructures at High Angular Resolution Project (DSHARP) to search for faint 1.3 mm continuum emission associated with dusty circumplanetary material located within the narrow annuli of depleted emission (gaps) in circumstellar disks. This search used the Jennings et al. (2020) $\tt{frank}$ modeling methodology to mitigate contamination from the local disk emission, and then deployed a suite of injection-recovery experiments to statistically characterize point-like circumplanetary disks in residual images. While there are a few putative candidates in this sample, they have only marginal local signal-to-noise ratios and would require deeper measurements to confirm. Associating a 50% recovery fraction with an upper limit, we find these data are sensitive to circumplanetary disks with flux densities $\gtrsim 50-70$ $μ$Jy in most cases. There are a few examples where those limits are inflated ($\gtrsim 110$ $μ$Jy) due to lingering non-axisymmetric structures in their host circumstellar disks, most notably for a newly identified faint spiral in the HD 143006 disk. For standard assumptions, this analysis suggests that these data should be sensitive to circumplanetary disks with dust masses $\gtrsim 0.001-0.2$ M$_\oplus$. While those bounds are comparable to some theoretical expectations for young giant planets, we discuss how plausible system properties (e.g., relatively low host planet masses or the efficient radial drift of solids) could require much deeper observations to achieve robust detections.

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Investigating the Relative Gas and Small Dust Grain Surface Heights in Protoplanetary Disks

Dust evolution in protoplanetary disks from small dust grains to pebbles is key to the planet formation process. The gas in protoplanetary disks should influence the vertical distribution of small dust grains ($\sim$1 $μm$) in the disk.Utilizing archival near-infrared polarized light and millimeter observations, we can measure the scale height and the flare parameter $β$ of the small dust grain scattering surface and $^{12}$CO gas emission surface for three protoplanetary disks IM Lup, HD 163296, and HD 97048 (CU Cha). For two systems, IM Lup and HD 163296, the $^{12}$CO gas and small dust grains at small radii from the star have similar heights but at larger radii ($>$100 au) the dust grain scattering surface height is lower than the $^{12}$CO gas emission surface height. In the case of HD 97048, the small dust grain scattering surface has similar heights to the $^{12}$CO gas emission surface at all radii. We ran a protoplanetary disk radiative transfer model of a generic protoplanetary disk with TORUS and showed that there is no difference between the observed scattering surface and $^{12}$CO emission surface. We also performed analytical modeling of the system and found that gas-to-dust ratios larger than 100 could explain the observed difference in IM Lup and HD 163296. This is the first direct comparison of observations of gas and small dust grain heights distribution in protoplanetary disks. Future observations of gas emission and near-infrared scattered light instruments are needed to look for similar trends in other protoplanetary disks.

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Impact of Differential Dust Settling on the SED and Polarization: Application to the Inner Region of the HL Tau Disk

The polarimetric observations on the protoplanetary disk around HL Tau have shown the scattering-induced polarization at ALMA Band 7, which indicates that the maximum dust size is $\sim 100~{\rm μm}$, while the Spectral Energy Distribution (SED) has suggested that the maximum dust size is $\sim$ mm. To solve the contradiction, we investigate the impact of differential settling of dust grains on the SED and polarization. If the disk is optically thick, longer observing wavelength traces more interior layer which would be dominated by larger grains. We find that, the SED of the center part of the HL Tau disk can be explained with mm-sized grains for a broad range of turbulence strength, while $160~{\rm μm}$-sized grains can explain barely only if the turbulence strength parameter $α_{\rm t}$ is lower than $10^{-5}$. We also find that the observed polarization fraction can be potentially explained with the maximum dust size of $1~{\rm mm}$ if $α_{\rm t}\lesssim10^{-5}$, although models with $160~{\rm μm}$-sized grains are also acceptable. However, if the maximum dust size is $\sim3~{\rm mm}$, the simulated polarization fraction is too low to explain the observations even if the turbulence strength is extremely small, indicating the maximum dust size of $\lesssim1$ mm. The degeneracy between 100 ${\rm μm}$-sized and mm-sized grains can be solved by improving the ALMA calibration accuracy or polarimetric observations at (sub-)cm wavelengths.

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A search for companions via direct imaging in the DSHARP planet-forming disks

The "Disk Substructures at High Angular Resolution Project" (DSHARP) has revealed an abundance and ubiquity of rings and gaps over a large sample of young planet-forming disks, which are hypothesised to be induced by the presence of forming planets. In this context, we present the first attempt to directly image these young companions for 10 of the DSHARP disks, by using NaCo/VLT high contrast observations in L'-band instrument and angular differential imaging techniques. We report the detection of a point-like source candidate at 1.1" (174.9 au) for RU Lup, and at 0.42" (55 AU) for Elias 24. In the case of RU Lup, the proper motion of the candidate is consistent with a stationary background contaminant, based on the astrometry derived from our observations and available archival data. For Elias 24 the point-like source candidate is located in one of the disk gaps at 55 AU. Assuming it is a planetary companion, our analysis suggest a mass ranging from $0.5 M_J$ up to $5 M_J$, depending on the presence of a circumplanetary disk and its contribution to the luminosity of the system. However, no clear confirmation is obtained at this stage, and follow-up observations are mandatory to verify if the proposed source is physical, comoving with the stellar host, and associated with a young massive planet sculpting the gap observed at 55\,AU. For all the remaining systems, the lack of detections suggests the presence of planetary companions with masses lower than $5M_J$, based on our derived mass detection limits. This is consistent with predictions of both hydrodynamical simulations and kinematical signatures on the disk, and allows us to set upper limits on the presence of massive planets in these young disks.

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Near-IR observations of the young star [BHB2007]-1: A sub-stellar companion opening the gap in the disk

The presence of planets or sub-stellar objects still embedded in their native protoplanetary disks is indirectly suggested by disk sub-structures like gaps, cavities, and spirals. However, these companions are rarely detected. We present VLT/NACO high-contrast images in $J$, $H$, $K_S$, and $L^{\prime}$ band of the young star [BHB2007]-1 probing the inclined disk in scattered light and revealing the probable presence of a companion. The point source is detected in the $L^{\prime}$ band in spatial correspondence with complementary VLA observations. This object is constrained to have a mass in the range of 37-47 M$_{Jup}$ and is located at 50 au from the central star, inside the 70 au-large disk cavity recently imaged by ALMA, that is absent from our NACO data (down to 20 au). This mass range is compatible with the upper end derived from the size of the ALMA cavity. The NIR disk brightness is highly asymmetric around the minor axis, with the southern side 5.5 times brighter than the northern side. The constant amount of asymmetry across all wavelengths suggests that it is due to a shadow cast by a misaligned inner disk. The massive companion that we detect could, in principle, explain the possible disk misalignment, as well as the different cavity sizes inferred by the NACO and ALMA observations. The confirmation and characterization of the companion is entrusted to future observations.

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Constraining Protoplanetary Disk Accretion and Young Planets Using ALMA Kinematic Observations

Recent ALMA molecular line observations have revealed 3-D gas velocity structure in protoplanetary disks, shedding light on mechanisms of disk accretion and structure formation. 1) By carrying out viscous simulations, we confirm that the disk's velocity structure differs dramatically using vertical stress profiles from different accretion mechanisms. Thus, kinematic observations tracing flows at different disk heights can potentially distinguish different accretion mechanisms. On the other hand, the disk surface density evolution is mostly determined by the vertically integrated stress. The sharp disk outer edge constrained by recent kinematic observations can be caused by a radially varying $α$ in the disk. 2) We also study kinematic signatures of a young planet by carrying out 3-D planet-disk simulations. The relationship between the planet mass and the "kink" velocity is derived, showing a linear relationship with little dependence on disk viscosity, but some dependence on disk height when the planet is massive, e.g. $10 M_J$. We predict the "kink" velocities for the potential planets in DSHARP disks. At the gap edge, the azimuthally-averaged velocities at different disk heights deviate from the Keplerian velocity at similar amplitudes, and its relationship with the planet mass is consistent with that in 2-D simulations. After removing the planet, the azimuthally-averaged velocity barely changes within the viscous timescale, and thus the azimuthally-averaged velocity structure at the gap edge is due to the gap itself and not directly caused to the planet. Combining both axisymmetric kinematic observations and the residual "kink" velocity is needed to probe young planets in protoplanetary disks.

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