Constraining the gas distribution in the PDS 70 disk as a method to assess the effect of planet-disk interactions

TL;DR

This study models the gas and dust distribution in the PDS 70 disk to understand how planet-disk interactions create observed substructures, revealing a significant gas density drop linked to the planets within the disk.

Contribution

Developed a thermo-chemical model of the PDS 70 disk that constrains the gas distribution and links substructures to planet-disk interactions, providing new insights into the disk's physical state.

Findings

Gas-to-dust ratio varies by two orders of magnitude within 130 au.

Gas density drops by a factor of about 19 at PDS 70 c's location.

Gas gap depth aligns with independent planet mass estimates.

Abstract

Embedded planets are potentially the cause of substructures like gaps and cavities observed in several protoplanetary disks. Thus, the substructures observed in the continuum and in line emission encode information about the presence of planets in the system and how they interact with the natal disk. The pre-transitional disk around the star PDS 70 is the first case of two young planets imaged within a dust depleted gap that was likely carved by themselves. We aim to determine the spatial distribution of the gas and dust components in the PDS 70 disk. The axisymmetric substructures observed in the resulting profiles are interpreted in the context of planet-disk interactions. We develop a thermo-chemical forward model for an axisymmetric disk to explain a subset of the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA) band 6 observations of three CO isotopologues plus the continuum towards PDS 70. Combining the inferred gas and dust distributions, the model results in a variable gas-to-dust ratio profile throughout the disk that spans two orders of magnitude within the first $130$ au and shows a step gradient towards the outer disk, which is consistent with the presence of a pressure maxima driven by planet-disk interactions. We find a gas density drop factor of ${\sim} 19$ at the location of the planet PDS 70 c with respect to the peak gas density at $75$ au. Combining this value with literature results on the hydrodynamics of planet-disk interactions, we find this gas gap depth to be consistent with independent planet mass estimates from infrared observations. Our findings point towards gas stirring processes taking place in the common gap due to the gravitational perturbation of both planets.