Three-Dimensional Disk-Satellite Interaction: Torques, Migration, and Observational Signatures

TL;DR

This paper uses three-dimensional hydrodynamic simulations to analyze how inclined planets interact with protoplanetary disks, revealing inclination-dependent effects on migration, torques, and observational signatures, which differ from two-dimensional models.

Contribution

It provides new formulae for migration, inclination damping, and precession rates of inclined planets, highlighting the importance of 3D effects in disk-planet interactions.

Findings

Inclination significantly affects torque and migration rates.

Good agreement with linear theory for small inclinations.

Dynamical friction force is not aligned with planetary velocity.

Abstract

The interaction of a satellite with a gaseous disk results in the excitation of spiral density waves which remove angular momentum from the orbit. In addition, if the orbit is not coplanar with the disk, three-dimensional effects will excite bending and eccentricity waves. We perform three-dimensional hydrodynamic simulations to study nonlinear disk-satellite interaction in inviscid protoplanetary disks for a variety of orbital inclinations from $0^\circ$ to $180^\circ$. It is well known that three-dimensional effects are important even for zero inclination. In this work we (1) show that for planets with small inclinations (as in the Solar system), effects such as the total torque and migration rate strongly depend on the inclination and are significantly different (about 2.5 times smaller) from the two-dimensional case, (2) give formulae for the migration rate, inclination damping, and precession rate of planets with different inclination angles in disk with different scale heights, and (3) present the observational signatures of a planet on an inclined orbit with respect to the protoplanetary disk. For misaligned planets we find good agreement with linear theory in the limit of small inclinations, and with dynamical friction estimates for intermediate inclinations. We find that in the latter case, the dynamical friction force is not parallel to the relative planetary velocity. Overall, the derived formulae will be important for studying exoplanets with obliquity.