Planets are often invoked as the cause of inferred gaps or inner clearings in transition disks. These putative planets would interact with the remnant circumstellar disk, accreting gas and generating substantial luminosity. Here I explore the expected appearance of accreting protoplanets at a range of evolutionary states. I compare synthetic spectral energy distributions with the handful of claimed detections of substellar-mass companions in transition disks. While observed fluxes of candidate companions are generally compatible with accreting protoplanets, challenges remain in reconciling the extended structure inferred in observed objects with the compact emission expected from protoplanets or circumplanetary disks. I argue that a large fraction of transition disks should harbor bright protoplanets, and that more may be detected as larger telescopes open up additional parameter space.
Exoplanet detections have revolutionized astronomy, offering new insights into solar system architecture and planet demographics. While nearly 1900 exoplanets have now been discovered and confirmed, none are still in the process of formation. Transition discs, protoplanetary disks with inner clearings best explained by the influence of accreting planets, are natural laboratories for the study of planet formation. Some transition discs show evidence for the presence of young planets in the form of disc asymmetries or infrared sources detected within their clearings, as in the case of LkCa 15. A…
Context. The dynamics of a low-mass protoplanet accreting solids is influenced by the heating torque, which was found to suppress inward migration in protoplanetary disks with constant opacities. Aims. We investigate the differences of the heating torque between disks with constant and temperature-dependent opacities. Methods. Interactions of a super-Earth-sized protoplanet with the gas disk are explored using 3D radiation hydrodynamic simulations. Results. Accretion heating of the protoplanet creates a hot underdense region in the surrounding gas, leading to misalignment of the local density …
The streaming instability is one of the most promising pathways to the formation of planetesimals from pebbles. Understanding how this instability operates under realistic conditions expected in protoplanetary disks is therefore crucial to assess the efficiency of planet formation. Contemporary models of protoplanetary disks show that magnetic fields are key to driving gas accretion through large-scale, laminar magnetic stresses. However, the effect of such magnetic fields on the streaming instability has not been examined in detail. To this end, we study the stability of dusty, magnetized gas…
The streaming instability (SI) is one of the most promising candidates for triggering planetesimal formation by producing dense dust clumps that undergo gravitational collapse. Understanding how the SI operates in realistic protoplanetary disks (PPDs) is therefore crucial to assess the efficiency of planetesimal formation. Modern models of PPDs show that large-scale magnetic torques or winds can drive laminar gas accretion near the disk midplane. In a previous study, we identified a new linear dust-gas instability, the azimuthal drift SI (AdSI), applicable to such accreting disks and is powere…
Progress in understanding of giant planet formation has been hampered by a lack of observational constraints to growing protoplanets. Recently, detection of an Hα-emission excess via direct imaging was reported for the protoplanet LkCa15b orbiting the pre-main-sequence star LkCa15. However, the physical mechanism for the Hα emission is poorly understood. According to recent high-resolution three-dimensional hydrodynamic simulations of the flow accreting onto protoplanets, the disk gas flows down almost vertically onto and collides with the surface of a circum-planetary disk at a super-sonic ve…
Occurrence rates of accreting companions from a new method for computing emission-line survey sensitivity: application to the H-alpha Giant Accreting Protoplanet Survey
The low water content of the terrestrial planets in the solar system suggests that the protoplanets formed within the water snow line. Accurate prediction of the snow line location moving with time provides a clue to constrain the formation process of the planets. In this paper, we investigate the migration of the snow line in protoplanetary disks whose accretion is controlled by laminar magnetic fields, which have been proposed by various nonideal magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations. We propose an empirical model of the disk temperature based on our nonideal MHD simulations, which show that…
While recent observational progress is converging on the detection of compact regions of thermal emission due to embedded protoplanets, further theoretical predictions are needed to understand the response of a protoplanetary disk to the planet formation radiative feedback. This is particularly important to make predictions for the observability of circumplanetary regions. In this work we use 2D hydrodynamical simulations to examine the evolution of a viscous protoplanetary disk in which a luminous Jupiter-mass planet is embedded. We use an energy equation which includes the radiative heating …
Accreting protoplanets provide key insights into how planets assemble from their natal protoplanetary disks. Recently, Zhou et al. (2021) used angular differential imaging (ADI) with Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Camera 3 (HST/WFC3) to recover the young accreting planet PDS 70 b in F656N ($\mathrm{H}α$) at a S/N of 7.9. In this paper, we demonstrate a promising approach to efficiently imaging accreting planets by applying reference star differential imaging (RDI) to the same dataset. We compile a reference library from the database of WFC3 point-spread functions (PSFs) provided by Space …
We examine the migration of luminous low-mass cores in laminar protoplanetary discs where accretion occurs mainly because of disc winds and where the planet luminosity is generated by pebble accretion. Using 2D hydrodynamical simulations, we determine the eccentricities induced by thermal forces as a function of gas and pebble accretion rates, and also evaluate the importance of the torque exerted by the solid component relative to the gas torque. For a gas accretion rate $\dot M= 2\times 10^{-8}$ $M_\odot/$yr and pebble flux $\dot M_{peb}=170$ $M_\oplus$/Myr, we find that embryo eccentricitie…
High-contrast imaging has afforded astronomers the opportunity to study light directly emitted by adolescent (tens of Myr) and ``proto" ($<$10Myr) planets still undergoing formation. Direct detection of these planets is enabled by empirical Point Spread Function (PSF) modeling and removal algorithms. The computational intensity of such algorithms, and their multiplicity of tunable input parameters, has led to the prevalence of ad-hoc optimization approaches to high-contrast imaging results. In this work, we present a new, systematic approach to optimization vetted using data of the high-contra…
Several planetary systems are known to host multiple giant planets. However, when two giant planets are accreting from the same disk, it is unclear what effect the presence of the second planet has on the gas accretion process of both planets. In this paper we perform long-term 2D isothermal hydrodynamical simulations (over more than 0.5 Myrs) with the FARGO-2D1D code, considering two non-migrating planets accreting from the same gaseous disk. We find that the evolution of the planets' mass ratio depends on gap formation. However, in all cases, when the planets start accreting at the same time…
Newly forming proto-planets are expected to create cavities and substructures in young, gas-rich proto-planetary disks, but they are difficult to detect as they could be confused with disk features affected by advanced image-analysis techniques. Recently, a planet was discovered inside the gap of the transitional disk of the T-Tauri star PDS 70. Here we report on the detection of strong H-alpha emission from two distinct locations in the PDS 70 system, one corresponding to the previously discovered planet PDS 70 b, which confirms the earlier H$α$ detection, and another located close to the out…
We report Gemini Planet Imager H band high-contrast imaging/integral field spectroscopy and polarimetry of the HD 100546, a 10 $Myr$-old early-type star recently confirmed to host a thermal infrared bright (super)jovian protoplanet at wide separation, HD 100546 b. We resolve the inner disk cavity in polarized light, recover the thermal-infrared (IR) bright arm, and identify one additional spiral arm. We easily recover HD 100546 b and show that much of its emission originates an unresolved, point source. HD 100546 b likely has extremely red infrared colors compared to field brown dwarfs, qualit…
The solid material of protoplanetary discs forms an asymmetric pattern around a low-mass planet (M_p<=10M_Earth) due to the combined effect of dust-gas interaction and the gravitational attraction of the planet. Recently, it has been shown that although the total solid mass is negligible compared to that of gas in protoplanetary discs, a positive torque can be emerged by a certain size solid species. The torque magnitude can overcome that of gas which may result in outward planetary migration. In this study, we show that the accretion of solid species by the planet strengthens the magnitude of…
In the core accretion model for the formation of gas giant planets, runaway gas accretion onto a core is the primary requisite, triggered when the core mass reaches a critical value. The recently revealed wide diversity of the extrasolar giant planets suggests the necessity to further the understanding of the conditions resulting in the critical core mass that initiates runaway accretion. We study the internal structure of protoplanets under hydrostatic and thermal equilibria represented in terms of a polytropic equation of state to investigate what factors determine and affect the critical co…
We investigate the formation of hot and massive circumplanetary disks (CPDs) and the orbital evolution of satellites formed in these disks. Because of the comparatively small size-scale of the sub-disk, quick magnetic diffusion prevents the magnetorotational instability (MRI) from being well-developed at ionization levels that would allow MRI in the parent protoplanetary disk. In the absence of significant angular momentum transport, continuous mass supply from the parental protoplanetary disk leads to the formation of a massive CPD. We have developed an evolutionary model for this scenario an…
Distinct gap features in the nearest protoplanetary disk, TW Hya (distance of 59.5$\pm$0.9 pc), may be signposts of ongoing planet formation. We performed long-exposure thermal infrared coronagraphic imaging observations to search for accreting planets especially within dust gaps previously detected in scattered light and submm-wave thermal emission. Three nights of observations with the Keck/NIRC2 vortex coronagraph in $L^\prime$ (3.4-4.1$μ$m) did not reveal any statistically significant point sources. We thereby set strict upper limits on the masses of non-accreting planets. In the four most…
We present a massive accreting gap (MAG) planet model that ensures large gaps in transitional disks are kept dust free by the scattering action of three co-planar quasi-circular planets in a 1:2:4 Mean Motion Resonance (MMR). This model uses the constraint of the observed gap size, and the dust-free nature of the gap, to determine within ~10% the possible orbits for 3 massive planets in an MMR. Calculated orbits are consistent with the observed orbits and H-alpha emission (the brightest line to observe these planets) for LkCa 15 b and PDS 70 b and PDS 70 c within observational errors. Moreover…
The mechanisms of planet formation are still under debate. We know little about how planets form, even if more than 4000 exoplanets have been detected to date. Recent investigations target the cot of newly born planets: the protoplanetary disk. At the first stages of their life, exoplanets still accrete material from the gas-rich disk in which they are embedded. Transitional disks are indeed disks that show peculiarities, such as gaps, spiral arms, and rings, which can be connected to the presence of substellar companions. To investigate what is responsible for these features, we selected all …
The large number of observed exoplanets ($\gtrsim $ 700) provides important constraints on their origin as deduced from the mass-period diagram of planets. The most surprising features in the diagram are 1) the (apparent) pile up of gas giants at a period of $\sim 500$ days ($\sim1$ AU) and 2) the so-called mass-period relation which indicates that planetary mass is an increasing function of orbital period. We construct the evolutionary tracks of growing planets at planet traps in evolving protoplanetary disks and show that they provide a good physical understanding of how these observational …
(Abridged) We use Herschel PACS observations at 70 and 160$μ$m to probe the protoplanetary disks around young stars in the CepOB2 clusters Tr37 and NGC7160 and to trace the small-scale cloud structure. We detect 95 protoplanetary disks at 70$μ$m, 41 at 160$μ$m, and obtain upper limits for over 130 objects. The detection fraction at 70$μ$m depends on the spectral type (88% for K4 or earlier, 17% for M3 or later stars) and on the disk type ($\sim$50% for full and pre-transitional disks, $\sim$35% for transitional disks, no low-excess/depleted disks detected). Non-accreting disks are consistent w…
We perform calculations of our one-dimensional, two-zone disk model to study the long-term evolution of the circumstellar disk. In particular, we adopt published photoevaporation prescriptions and examine whether the photoevaporative loss alone, coupled with a range of initial angular momenta of the protostellar cloud, can explain the observed decline of the frequency of optically-thick dusty disks with increasing age. In the parameter space we explore, disks have accreting and/or non-accreting transitional phases lasting of $\lesssim20 %$ of their lifetime, which is in reasonable agreement wi…
Accreting planets have been seen at Ha (H alpha), but targeted searches have not been fruitful. For planets, accretion tracers should come from the shock itself, exposing them to extinction by the accreting material. High-resolution (R>5e4) spectrographs at Ha should soon allow studying how the incoming material shapes the line profile. We calculate how much the gas and dust accreting onto a planet reduce the Ha flux from the shock at the planetary surface and how they affect line shapes. We also study the absorption-modified relationship between Ha luminosity and Mdot. We compute the high-res…
We investigate gas accretion flow onto a circumplanetary disk from a protoplanetary disk in detail by using high-resolution three-dimensional nested-grid hydrodynamic simulations, in order to provide a basis of formation processes of satellites around giant planets. Based on detailed analyses of gas accretion flow, we find that most of gas accretion onto circumplanetary disks occurs nearly vertically toward the disk surface from high altitude, which generates a shock surface at several scale heights of the circumplanetary disk. The gas that has passed through the shock surface moves inward bec…
We investigate under what circumstances an embedded planet in a protoplanetary disc may sculpt the dust distribution such that it observationally presents as a `transition' disc. We concern ourselves with `transition' discs that have large holes ($\gtrsim 10$ AU) and high accretion rates ($\sim 10^{-9}-10^{-8}$ M$_\odot$ yr$^{-1}$). Particularly, those discs which photoevaporative models struggle to explain. Assuming the standard picture for how massive planets sculpt their parent discs, along with the observed accretion rates in `transition' discs, we find that the accretion luminosity from t…
We calculate radial migration rates of protoplanets in laminar minimum mass solar nebula discs using three-dimensional self-gravitating radiation hydrodynamical (RHD) models. The protoplanets are free to migrate, whereupon their migration rates are measured. For low mass protoplanets (10-50 M_\oplus) we find increases in the migration timescales of up to an order of magnitude between locally-isothermal and RHD models. In the high-mass regime the migration rates are changed very little. These results are arrived at by calculating migration rates in locally-isothermal models, before sequentially…
We present $L$'-band imaging of the PDS 70 planetary system with Keck/NIRC2 using the new infrared pyramid wavefront sensor. We detected both PDS 70 b and c in our images, as well as the front rim of the circumstellar disk. After subtracting off a model of the disk, we measured the astrometry and photometry of both planets. Placing priors based on the dynamics of the system, we estimated PDS 70 b to have a semi-major axis of $20^{+3}_{-4}$~au and PDS 70 c to have a semi-major axis of $34^{+12}_{-6}$~au (95\% credible interval). We fit the spectral energy distribution (SED) of both planets. For…
Sulfur is one of the most abundant elements in the Universe, with important roles in astro-, geo-, and biochemistry. Its main reservoirs in planet-forming disks have previously eluded detection: gaseous molecules only account for $<1\,$\% of total elemental sulfur, with the rest likely in either ices or refractory minerals. Mechanisms such as giant planets can filter out dust from gas accreting onto disk-hosting stars. For stars above 1.4 solar masses, this leaves a chemical signature on the stellar photosphere that can be used to determine the fraction of each element that is locked in dust. …
Planetary bodies form by accretion of smaller bodies. It has been suggested that a very efficient way to grow protoplanets is by accreting particles of size <<km (e.g., chondrules, boulders, or fragments of larger bodies) as they can be kept dynamically cold. We investigate the effects of gas drag on the impact radii and the accretion rates of these particles. As simplifying assumptions we restrict our analysis to 2D settings, a gas drag law linear in velocity, and a laminar disk characterized by a smooth (global) pressure gradient that causes particles to drift in radially. These approximatio…
Recent observations of protoplanets embedded in circumstellar disks have shed light on the planet formation process. In particular, detection of hydrogen Balmer-line (Hα) emission gives direct constraints on late-stage accretion onto gas giants. Very recently Haffert et al. (2019) measured the spectral line-widths, in addition to intensities, of Hα emission from the two protoplanets orbiting PDS 70. Here, we study these protoplanets by applying radiation-hydrodynamic models of the shock-heated accretion flow onto protoplanets that Aoyama et al. (2018) has recently developed. As a result, we de…
The magnetorotational instability (MRI) drives magnetized turbulence in sufficiently ionized regions of protoplanetary disks, leading to mass accretion. The dissipation of the potential energy associated with this accretion determines the thermal structure of accreting regions. Until recently, the heating from the turbulence has only been treated in an azimuthally averaged sense, neglecting local fluctuations. However, magnetized turbulence dissipates its energy intermittently in current sheet structures. We study this intermittent energy dissipation using high resolution numerical models incl…
Understanding how giant planets form requires observational input from directly imaged protoplanets. We used VLT/NACO and VLT/SPHERE to search for companions in the transition disc of 2MASS J19005804-3645048 (hereafter CrA-9), an accreting M0.75 dwarf with an estimated age of 1-2 Myr. We found a faint point source at $\sim$0.7'' separation from CrA-9 ($\sim$108 au projected separation). Our 3-epoch astrometry rejects a fixed background star with a $5σ$ significance. The near-IR absolute magnitudes of the object point towards a planetary-mass companion. However, our analysis of the 1.0-3.8$μ$m …
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 th…
Protoplanets of Super-Earth sizes may get trapped in convergence zones for planetary migration and form gas giants there. These growing planets undergo accretion heating, which triggers a hot-trail effect that can reverse migration directions, increase eccentricities and prevent resonant captures (Chrenko et al. 2017). We study populations of embryos accreting pebbles using Fargo-Thorin 2D hydrocode. We find that embryos in a disk with high surface density ($Σ_0 = 990\,{\rm g}\,{\rm cm}^{-2}$) undergo `unsuccessful' two-body encounters which do not lead to a merger. Only when a 3rd protoplanet…
Runway growth is an important stage in planet formation during which large protoplanets form, while most of the initial mass remains in small planetesimals. The amount of mass converted into large protoplanets and their resulting size distribution are not well understood. Here, we use analytic work, that we confirm by coagulation simulations, to describe runaway growth and the corresponding evolution of the velocity dispersion. We find that runaway growth proceeds as follows: Initially all the mass resides in small planetesimals, with mass surface density σ, and large protoplanets start to for…
Spectral energy distributions are presented for 94 young stars surrounded by disks in the Serpens Molecular Cloud, based on photometry and Spitzer IRS spectra. Taking a distance to the cloud of 415 pc rather than 259 pc, the distribution of ages is shifted to lower values, in the 1-3 Myr range, with a tail up to 10 Myr. The mass distribution spans 0.2-1.2 Msun, with median mass of 0.7 Msun. The distribution of fractional disk luminosities in Serpens resembles that of the young Taurus Molecular Cloud, with most disks consistent with optically thick, passively irradiated disks in a variety of di…
We calculate heavy element enrichment in a Jupiter-mass protoplanet formed by disk instability at various radial distances from the star, considering different disk masses and surface density distributions. Although the available mass for accretion increases with radial distance (a) for disk solid surface density (sigma) functions sigma=sigma_0*a^(-alpha) with alpha < 2, the accretion timescale is significantly longer at larger radial distances. Efficient accretion is limited to the first ~ 1E5 years of planetary evolution, when the planet is extended and before gap opening and type II migrati…
We present ALMA images of the sub-mm continuum polarisation and spectral index of the protoplanetary ringed disk HD163296. The polarisation fraction at 870μm is measured to be ~0.9% in the central core and generally increases with radius along the disk major axis. It peaks in the gaps between the dust rings, and the largest value (~4%) is found between rings 1 and 2. The polarisation vectors are aligned with the disk minor axis in the central core, but become more azimuthal in the gaps, twisting by up to +/-9degrees in the gap between rings 1 and 2. These general characteristics are consistent…
We report kinematic and thermal signatures associated with the directly imaged protoplanet candidate in the Elias 2-24 disc. Using the DSHARP ALMA observations of the $^{12}$CO J=2-1 line, we show that the disc kinematics are perturbed, with a detached CO emission spot at the location of the planet candidate and traces of spiral wakes, and also that the observed CO emission intensities require local heating. While the foreground extinction hides the velocity channels associated with the planet, preventing a planet mass estimate, the level of gas heating implied by the CO emission indicates the…
Planets form in young circumstellar disks called protoplanetary disks. However, it is still difficult to catch planet formation in-situ. Nevertheless, from recent ALMA/SPHERE data, encouraging evidence of the direct and indirect presence of embedded planets has been identified in disks around young stars: co-moving point sources, gravitational perturbations, rings, cavities, and emission dips or shadows cast on disks. The interpretation of these observations needs a robust physical framework to deduce the complex disk geometry. In particular, protoplanetary disk models usually assume the gas p…
In the core accretion model, gas-giant planets first form a solid core, which then accretes gas from a protoplanetary disk when the core exceeds a critical mass. Here, we model the atmosphere of a core that grows by accreting ice-rich pebbles. The ice fraction of pebbles evaporates in warm regions of the atmosphere, saturating it with water vapor. Excess water precipitates to lower altitudes. Beneath an outer radiative region, the atmosphere is convective, following a moist adiabat in saturated regions due to water condensation and precipitation. Atmospheric mass, density and temperature incre…
Isotope abundance ratios play an important role in astronomy and planetary sciences, providing insights in the origin and evolution of the Solar System, interstellar chemistry, and stellar nucleosynthesis. In contrast to deuterium/hydrogen ratios, carbon isotope ratios are found to be roughly constant (~89) in the Solar System, but do vary on galactic scales with 12C/13C~68 in the current local interstellar medium. In molecular clouds and protoplanetary disks, 12CO/13CO isotopologue ratios can be altered by ice and gas partitioning, low-temperature isotopic ion exchange reactions, and isotope-…
