The Structure of Spiral Shocks Excited by Planetary-mass Companions

TL;DR

This study uses 3-D hydrodynamical simulations to analyze how planetary-mass companions excite spiral shocks in protoplanetary disks, revealing new dependencies of spiral arm features on planet mass and vertical motion.

Contribution

It demonstrates that spiral arm pitch angles depend on planet mass, introduces the significance of multiple spiral arms, and emphasizes the importance of 3-D modeling for accurate observational predictions.

Findings

Spiral arm pitch angle depends on planet mass, contrary to linear theory.

Massive planets excite secondary and tertiary spiral arms.

Inner arms show significant vertical motion, enhancing observational contrast.

Abstract

Direct imaging observations have revealed spiral structures in protoplanetary disks. Previous studies have suggested that planet-induced spiral arms cannot explain some of these spiral patterns, due to the large pitch angle and high contrast of the spiral arms in observations. We have carried out three dimensional (3-D) hydrodynamical simulations to study spiral wakes/shocks excited by young planets. We find that, in contrast with linear theory, the pitch angle of spiral arms does depend on the planet mass, which can be explained by the non-linear density wave theory. A secondary (or even a tertiary) spiral arm, especially for inner arms, is also excited by a massive planet. With a more massive planet in the disk, the excited spiral arms have larger pitch angle and the separation between the primary and secondary arms in the azimuthal direction is also larger. We also find that although the arms in the outer disk do not exhibit much vertical motion, the inner arms have significant vertical motion, which boosts the density perturbation at the disk atmosphere. Combining hydrodynamical models with Monte-Carlo radiative transfer calculations, we find that the inner spiral arms are considerably more prominent in synthetic near-IR images using full 3-D hydrodynamical models than images based on 2-D models assuming vertical hydrostatic equilibrium, indicating the need to model observations with full 3-D hydrodynamics. Overall, companion-induced spiral arms not only pinpoint the companion's position but also provide three independent ways (pitch angle, separation between two arms, and contrast of arms) to constrain the companion's mass.