On the Origin of Banded Structure in Dusty Protoplanetary Discs: HL Tau and TW Hya

TL;DR

This paper proposes that interactions between planets and planetesimals can explain the detailed banded structures observed in protoplanetary discs like HL Tau and TW Hya, highlighting a new mechanism for disc morphology formation.

Contribution

It introduces a model where planet-planetesimal interactions account for both major and minor disc substructures, advancing understanding of disc morphology origins.

Findings

Planet-planetesimal interactions can produce observed banded structures.

Collisional evolution of planetesimals generates small grains tracing disc morphology.

Model explains both prominent and subtle features in protoplanetary discs.

Abstract

Recent observations of HL Tau revealed remarkably detailed structure within the system's circumstellar disc. A range of hypotheses have been proposed to explain the morphology, including, e.g., planet-disc interactions, condensation fronts, and secular gravitational instabilities. While embedded planets seem to be able to explain some of the major structure in the disc through interactions with gas and dust, the substructure, such as low-contrast rings and bands, are not so easily reproduced. Here, we show that dynamical interactions between three planets (only two of which are modelled) and an initial population of large planetesimals can potentially explain both the major and minor banded features within the system. In this context, the small grains, which are coupled to the gas and reveal the disc morphology, are produced by the collisional evolution of the newly-formed planetesimals, which are ubiquitous in the system and are decoupled from the gas.