Magnetic fields in protoplanetary disks: from MHD simulations to ALMA observations

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that high-resolution ALMA observations can detect large-scale magnetic field structures and vortices in protoplanetary disks, validating MHD simulation predictions through polarized dust emission modeling.

Contribution

It introduces a method linking 3D MHD simulations with ALMA polarized emission observations to validate magnetic field predictions in protoplanetary disks.

Findings

Feasibility of observing toroidal magnetic fields with ALMA.

High-resolution ALMA can identify vortices in magnetized disk regions.

Simulations support the detectability of magnetic structures in disks.

Abstract

Magnetic fields significantly influence the evolution of protoplanetary disks and the formation of planets, following the predictions of numerous magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations. However, these predictions are yet observationally unconstrained. To validate the predictions on the influence of magnetic fields on protoplanetary disks, we apply 3D radiative transfer simulations of the polarized emission of aligned aspherical dust grains that directly link 3D global non-ideal MHD simulations to ALMA observations. Our simulations show that it is feasible to observe the predicted toroidal large-scale magnetic field structures, not only in the ideal observations but also with high-angular resolution ALMA observations. Our results show further that high angular resolution observations by ALMA are able to identify vortices embedded in outer magnetized disk regions.