Running summarizing tools on a new article

Check the paper below, then start its synthesis.


ALMA images of discs: are all gaps carved by planets?

Jean-François Gonzalez, Guillaume Laibe, Sarah T. Maddison, Christophe Pinte, François Ménard

arXiv: 1509.00691v1 - DOI (astro-ph.EP)
Accepted for publication in MNRAS Letters. 5 pages, 6 figures. MNRAS, Oxford University press, 2015, in press

Abstract: Protoplanetary discs are now routinely observed and exoplanets, after the numerous indirect discoveries, are starting to be directly imaged. To better understand the planet formation process, the next step is the detection of forming planets or of signposts of young planets still in their disc, such as gaps. A spectacular example is the ALMA science verification image of HL Tau showing numerous gaps and rings in its disc. To study the observability of planet gaps, we ran 3D hydrodynamical simulations of a gas and dust disc containing a 5 M J gap-opening planet and characterised the spatial distribution of migrating, growing and fragmenting dust grains. We then computed the corresponding synthetic images for ALMA. For a value of the dust fragmentation threshold of 15 m s --1 for the collisional velocity, we identify for the first time a self-induced dust pile up in simulations taking fragmentation into account. This feature, in addition to the easily detected planet gap, causes a second apparent gap that could be mistaken for the signature of a second planet. It is therefore essential to be cautious in the interpretation of gap detections.

Submitted to arXiv on 02 Sep. 2015