Related papers: Radiative scale-height and shadows in protoplaneta…
(Abridged) Near- to mid-IR observations of protoplanetary disks show that the inner regions (<10AU) are rich in small organic volatiles (e.g., C2H2 and HCN). Trends in the data suggest that disks around cooler stars (~3000K) are potentially…
While it is widely accepted that planets are formed in protoplanetary disks, there is still much debate on when this process happens. In a few cases protoplanets have been directly imaged, but for the vast majority of systems, disk gaps and…
Understanding the origin of the astonishing diversity of exoplanets is a key question for the coming decades. ALMA has revolutionized our view of the dust emission from protoplanetary disks, demonstrating the prevalence of ring and spiral…
Detailed observations of gaps in protoplanetary disks have revealed structures that drive current research on circumstellar disks. One such feature is the two intensity nulls seen along the outer disk of the HD 142527 system, which are…
Dust gaps and rings appear ubiquitous in bright protoplanetary disks. Disk-planet interaction with dust-trapping at the edges of planet-induced gaps is one plausible explanation. However, the sharpness of some observed dust rings indicate…
A giant planet embedded in a protoplanetary disk forms a gap. An analytic relationship among the gap depth, planet mass $M_{p}$, disk aspect ratio $h_p$, and viscosity $\alpha$ has been found recently, and the gap depth can be written in…
Recent spacecraft observations exploring solar system properties impact standard paradigms of the formation of stars, planets and comets. We stress the unexpected cloud of microscopic dust resulting from the DEEP IMPACT mission, and the…
Protoplanetary disks, the birthplaces of planets, commonly feature bright rings and dark gaps in both continuum and line emission maps. Accreting planets are interacting with the disk, not only through gravity, but also by changing the…
Star and planet formation are inextricably linked. In the earliest phases of the collapse of a protostar a disc forms around the young star and such discs are observed for the first several million years of a star's life. It is within these…
The field of planet formation is in an exciting era, where recent observations of disks around low- to intermediate-mass stars made with state of the art interferometers and high-contrast optical and IR facilities have revealed a diversity…
Circumstellar disks are an integral part of the star formation process and the sites where planets are formed. Understanding the physical processes that drive their evolution, as disks evolve from optically thick to optically thin, is…
Protoplanetary disks composed of dust and gas are ubiquitous around young stars and are commonly recognized as nurseries of planetary systems. Their lifetime, appearance, and structure are determined by an interplay between stellar…
We carry out three-dimensional hydrodynamical simulations to study planet-disc interactions for inclined high mass planets, focusing on the disc's secular evolution induced by the planet. We find that, when the planet is massive enough and…
Planets form in disks around young stars. The planet formation process may start when the protostar and disk are still deeply embedded within their infalling envelope. However, unlike more evolved protoplanetary disks, the physical and…
The formation of planets occurs within protoplanetary disks surrounding young stars, resulting in perturbation of the gas and dust surface densities. Here, we report the first evidence of spatially resolved gas surface density…
Theoretical models of protoplanetary disks including stellar irradiation often show a spontaneous amplification of scale height perturbations, produced by the enhanced absorption of starlight in enlarged regions. In turn, such regions cast…
At the inner edge of a protoplanetary disk solids are illuminated by stellar light. This illumination heats the solids and creates temperature gradients along their surfaces. Interactions with ambient gas molecules lead to a radial net gas…
We investigate the possibility to find evidence for planets in circumstellar disks by infrared and submillimeter interferometry. We present simulations of a circumstellar disk around a solar-type star with an embedded planet of 1 Jupiter…
Recent high angular resolution observations of protoplanetary disks at different wavelengths have revealed several kinds of structures, including multiple bright and dark rings. Embedded planets are the most used explanation for such…
Azimuthally asymmetric structures have been discovered in millimeter continuum emission from many protoplanetary disks. One hypothesis is that they are vortices produced by the Rossby wave instability, for example at edges of planet-opened…