Radiative Transfer Models of a Possible Planet in the AB Aurigae Disk

TL;DR

This study models the AB Aurigae disk's scattered light to investigate the possibility of a planet, concluding that current observations do not require a planet presence, with an upper mass limit of 1 Jupiter.

Contribution

The paper introduces a radiative transfer modeling approach combined with hydrostatic equilibrium to interpret disk observations and constrain potential planet masses.

Findings

Observations are consistent with no planet present.

An upper limit of 1 Jupiter mass is established for potential planets.

The modeling approach effectively interprets scattered light data.

Abstract

Recent coronagraphic imaging of the AB Aurigae disk has revealed a region of low polarized scattered light suggestive of perturbations from a planet at a radius of ~100 AU. We model this darkened region using our fully non-plane-parallel radiative-transfer code combined with a simple hydrostatic equilibirum approximation to self-consistently solve for the structure of the disk surface as seen in scattered light. By comparing the observations to our models, we find that the observations are consistent with the absence of a planet, with an upper limit of 1 Jupiter mass.