Kinematic evidence for an embedded planet in the IM Lupi disc

TL;DR

This study provides kinematic evidence supporting the presence of an embedded giant planet in the IM Lupi disc, explaining observed velocity perturbations and spiral structures through hydrodynamic simulations.

Contribution

It demonstrates that a 2-3 Jupiter mass planet can account for observed kinks and spiral arms in the IM Lupi disc, combining simulations with synthetic observations.

Findings

A 2-3 Jupiter mass planet reproduces velocity kinks in CO line data.

The same planet explains spiral arms in dust and scattered light.

Planet wake traces match observed velocity maps.

Abstract

We test the hypothesis that an embedded giant planet in the IM Lupi protostellar disc can produce velocity kinks seen in CO line observations as well as the spiral arms seen in scattered light and continuum emission. We inject planets into 3D hydrodynamics simulations of IM Lupi, generating synthetic observations using Monte Carlo radiative transfer. We find that an embedded planet of 2-3 times the mass of Jupiter can reproduce non-Keplerian velocity perturbations, or `kinks', in the 12CO J=2-1 channel maps. Such a planet can also explain the spiral arms seen in 1.25mm dust continuum emission and 1.6 micron scattered light images. We show that the wake of the planet can be traced in the observed peak velocity map, which appears to closely follow the morphology expected from our simulations and from analytic models of planet-disc interaction.