On the Commonality of 10-30AU Sized Axisymmetric Dust Structures in Protoplanetary Disks

Abstract

An unsolved problem in step-wise core-accretion planet formation is that rapid radial drift in gas-rich protoplanetary disks should drive millimeter-/meter-sized particles inward to the central star before large bodies can form. One promising solution is to confine solids within small-scale structures. Here, we investigate dust structures in the (sub)millimeter continuum emission of four disks (TW Hya, HL Tau, HD 163296, and DM Tau), a sample of disks with the highest spatial resolution Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array observations to date. We retrieve the surface brightness distributions using synthesized images and fitting visibilities with analytical functions. We find that the continuum emission of the four disks is ~axisymmetric but rich in 10–30 AU-sized radial structures, possibly due to physical gaps, surface density enhancements, or localized dust opacity variations within the disks. These results suggest that small-scale axisymmetric dust structures are likely to be common, as a result of ubiquitous processes in disk evolution and planet formation. Compared with recent spatially resolved observations of CO snow lines in these same disks, all four systems show enhanced continuum emission from regions just beyond the CO condensation fronts, potentially suggesting a causal relationship between dust growth/trapping and snow lines.

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