Kinematics and brightness temperatures of transition discs -- A survey of gas substructures as seen with ALMA

TL;DR

This study analyzes gas kinematics and brightness temperatures in 36 transition discs with ALMA to identify substructures that may indicate planet formation, revealing significant features in some discs and suggesting many planets could be lower mass or closer to the star.

Contribution

It provides the first comparison of gas substructures with other planet indicators in transition discs, using residual analysis of ALMA data to infer potential planet-disc interactions.

Findings

8 discs show significant substructures in residuals

Approximately 20% of discs have features possibly linked to planets

Most discs with near-infrared spirals show tentative CO features

Abstract

In recent years, high-angular-resolution observations of the dust and gas in circumstellar discs have revealed a variety of morphologies, naturally triggering the question of whether these substructures are driven by forming planets. While it remains difficult to directly image embedded planets, a promising method to distinguish disc-shaping mechanisms is to study the gas kinematics as characterising deviations from Keplerian rotation can be used to probe underlying perturbations such as planets. Creating spiral structures, the latter can also be traced in the brightness temperature. Here we analyse the brightness temperatures and kinematics of a sample of 36 transition discs observed with ALMA to search for substructures possibly tracing companions. We use archival Band 6 and 7 observations of different CO isotopologues and fit Keplerian disc models to the velocity fields. After subtraction of an azimuthally averaged brightness temperature and Keplerian rotation model from the data, we find significant substructures in both residuals of eight sources. Other sources show tentative features, while half of our sample does not show any substructures that may be indicative of planet-disc interactions. For the first time, we compare the substructures from our analysis with various other indicators of planets. About 20% of discs show strong features such as arcs or spirals, possibly associated with the presence of planets, while the majority do not present as clear planet-driven signatures. Almost all discs that exhibit spirals in near-infrared scattered light show at least tentative features in the CO data. The present data are able to reveal only very massive bodies and a lack of features may suggest that, if there are planets, they are of lower mass (<1-3Mj) or located closer to the star within deep cavities. Dedicated observations and modelling efforts are needed to confirm such scenarios.