Continuing to Hide Signatures of Gravitational Instability in Protoplanetary Discs with Planets

TL;DR

This study uses 3D simulations to show that massive planets can suppress observable spiral structures in gravitationally unstable protoplanetary discs, affecting interpretations of disc mass and stability.

Contribution

It demonstrates how planet mass influences gravitational instability signatures and the observability of spiral structures in protoplanetary discs.

Findings

Massive planets suppress large-scale spiral structures.

Discs can appear axisymmetric despite being gravitationally unstable.

Absence of spiral features does not imply low disc mass.

Abstract

We carry out three dimensional smoothed particle hydrodynamics simulations to study the impact of planet-disc interactions on a gravitationally unstable protoplanetary disc. We find that the impact of a planet on the disc's evolution can be described by three scenarios. If the planet is sufficiently massive, the spiral wakes generated by the planet dominate the evolution of the disc and gravitational instabilities are completely suppressed. If the planet's mass is too small, then gravitational instabilities are unaffected. If the planet's mass lies between these extremes, gravitational instabilities are weakened. We present mock Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) continuum observations showing that the observability of large-scale spiral structures is diminished or completely suppressed when the planet is massive enough to influence the disc's evolution. Our results show that massive discs that would be expected to be gravitationally unstable can appear axisymmetric in the presence of a planet. Thus, the absence of observed large-scale spiral structures alone is not enough to place upper limits on the disc's mass, which could have implications on observations of young Class I discs with rings & gaps.