Simulated Observations of Young Gravitationally Unstable Protoplanetary Discs

TL;DR

This paper presents simulated ALMA observations of a young, massive, self-gravitating protoplanetary disc to aid future interpretation of high-resolution data, focusing on specific molecular lines.

Contribution

It provides detailed radiative transfer simulations of a massive protoplanetary disc, predicting observable molecular lines for future ALMA studies.

Findings

C17O 3-2, HCO+ 3-2, OCS 26-25, H2CO 404-303 lines can probe disc structure.

Simulations demonstrate how these lines reveal disc kinematics.

Predictions will assist in interpreting upcoming high-resolution observations.

Abstract

The formation and earliest stages of protoplanetary discs remain poorly constrained by observations. ALMA will soon revolutionise this field. Therefore, it is important to provide predictions which will be valuable for the interpretation of future high sensitivity and high angular resolution observations. Here we present simulated ALMA observations based on radiative transfer modelling of a relatively massive (0.39 M_solar) self-gravitating disc embedded in a 10 M_solar dense core, with structure similar to the pre-stellar core L1544. We focus on simple species and conclude that C17O 3-2, HCO+ 3-2, OCS 26-25 and H2CO 404-303 lines can be used to probe the disc structure and kinematics at all scales.