Detectability of giant planets in protoplanetary disks by CO emission lines

TL;DR

This paper proposes an indirect method to detect giant planets in protoplanetary disks by analyzing CO emission line profiles, which show characteristic asymmetries and variability caused by the planet's gravitational influence.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach using CO spectral line analysis and 2D gas dynamics modeling to identify signatures of embedded giant planets in protoplanetary disks.

Findings

Massive planets induce detectable asymmetries in CO line profiles.

Line profile variability correlates with the planet's orbital phase.

Detection is feasible with current or upcoming high-resolution spectrographs.

Abstract

In this paper we intend to provide an indirect method to detect Jovian planets by studying near infrared emission spectra originating in the protoplanetary disks around T Tauri stars. Our idea is to investigate whether a massive planet could induce any observable effect on the spectral lines emerging in the disks atmosphere. As a tracer molecule we propose CO, which is excited in the ro-vibrational fundamental band in the disk atmosphere to a distance of ~2-3 AU (depending on the stellar mass) where terrestrial planets are thought to form. The synthetic molecular spectral line profiles were calculated by an own developed semi-analytical double layer disk model. 2D gas dynamics were incorporated in the calculation of synthetic spectral lines. We demonstrate that a massive planet embedded in a protoplanetary disk strongly influences the originally circular Keplerian gas dynamics. The perturbed motion of the gas can be detected by comparing the CO line profiles in emission, which is emerge from planet-bearing to those of planet-free disk models. The planet signal has two major characteristics: a permanent line profile asymmetry, and short timescale variability correlated with the orbital phase of the giant planet. We have found that the strength of the asymmetry depends on the physical parameters of the star-planet-disk system, such as the disk inclination angle, the planetary and stellar masses, the orbital distance, and the size of the disk inner cavity. The permanent line profile asymmetry is caused by a disk in an eccentric state in the gap opened by the giant planet. However, the variable component is a consequence of the local dynamical perturbation by the orbiting giant planet. We show that a forming giant planet, still embedded in the protoplanetary disk, can be detected using contemporary or future high-resolution near-IR spectrographs like VLT/CRIRES and ELT/METIS.