Related papers: Giant Impacts and Debris Disk Morphology
High-contrast scattered light observations have revealed the surface morphology of several dozens of protoplanetary disks at optical and near-infrared wavelengths. Inclined disks offer the opportunity to measure part of the phase function…
Supermassive Binary Black Holes (SMBBHs) with sub-pc separations form in the course of galaxy mergers, if both galaxies harbour massive black holes. Clear observational evidence for them however still eludes us. We propose a novel method of…
Circumstellar discs may become warped or broken into distinct planes if there is a stellar or planetary companion with an orbit that is misaligned with respect to the disc. There is mounting observational evidence for protoplanetary discs…
We propose a novel concept of astrophysical mirroring in the schwarzschild framework, which emerges as a direct consequence of gravitational lensing effects occurring in the immediate vicinity of extremely dense massive objects within…
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…
We investigate the interaction between an eccentric planet and a less massive external debris disc. This scenario could occur after planet-planet scattering or merging events. We characterise the evolution over a wide range of initial…
In this paper we explore several structural and dynamical effects on the projected velocity dispersion as possible causes of the fundamental plane (FP) tilt of elliptical galaxies. Specifically, we determine the size of the systematic trend…
A substantial fraction of the warps in spiral galaxies may result from bending instabilities if the disks are essentially self-gravitating. With N-body simulations, we show that galaxies with self-gravitating disks as thick as HI disks are…
We perform 3D SPH simulations of warped, non-coplanar gravitationally unstable discs to show that as the warp propagates through the self-gravitating disc, it heats up the disc rendering it gravitationally stable. Thus losing their spiral…
Circumstellar debris disks are the extrasolar analogues of the asteroid belt and the Kuiper belt. They consist of comets and leftover planetesimals that continuously collide and produce circumstellar dust that can be observed as infrared…
Gravitational lensing of a quasar by a spiral galaxy should often be accompanied by damped Lyman-alpha absorption and dust extinction due to the intervening gaseous disk. In nearly edge-on configurations, the surface mass density of the gas…
Extreme debris discs (EDDs) are bright and warm circumstellar dusty structures around main sequence stars. They may represent the outcome of giant collisions occuring in the terrestrial region between large planetesimals or planetary…
Some transition disks host misaligned inner disks with radii of several au. Understanding the geometric and physical properties of these misaligned disks is essential for advancing terrestrial planet formation models. This study introduces…
High-resolution scattered-light imaging has revealed complex morphologies in protoplanetary and circumstellar disks. Measuring the vertical height of the scattering surface is key to understanding disk structure, evolution, and the…
Thermal imaging of debris disks is resolving the vertical height in an increasing number of systems, enabling the use of the vertical structure to decode the dynamical state of the planetary system. In this study, we examine the…
We present a new model of the $\beta$ Pictoris disk-and-planet system that simulates both the planetesimal collisions and the dynamics of the resulting dust grains, allowing us to model features and asymmetries in both thermal and scattered…
We present new high fidelity optical coronagraphic imagery of the inner $\sim$50 au of AU Mic's edge-on debris disk using the BAR5 occulter of the Hubble Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (HST/STIS) obtained on 26-27 July 2018. This new…
We present an analysis of the debris disc around the nearby K2 V star HIP 17439. In the context of the Herschel DUNES key programme the disc was observed and spatially resolved in the far-IR with the Herschel PACS and SPIRE instruments. In…
Gravitational lensing deflects light. A single lens deflector can only shear images, but cannot induce rotations. Multiple lens planes can induce rotations. Such rotations can be observed in quadruply imaged sources, and can be used to…
We studied the well known circumstellar disk around the Herbig Ae/Be star HD 97048 with high angular resolution to reveal undetected structures in the disk, which may be indicative of disk evolutionary processes such as planet formation. We…