Protostars and Planets VI, Heidelberg, July 15-20, 2013

Poster 2B039

Weighing Protoplanets in Transitional Disks

Mulders, Gijs (Astronomical Institute “Anton Pannekoek”, University of Amsterdam, NL)
Paardekooper, Sijme-Jan (DAMTP, University of Cambridge, UK)
Panic, Olja (Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, UK)
Thalmann, Christian (Astronomical Institute “Anton Pannekoek”, University of Amsterdam, NL)
van Boekel, Roy (Max-Planck Institute for Astronomy, DE)
Dominik, Carsten (Astronomical Institute “Anton Pannekoek”, University of Amsterdam, NL)

Abstract:
Forming giant planets are believed to be responsible for creating the gaps and holes in the most massive transitional disks. But the details of how these planets shape their parental disks, and how we can constrain planet properties from disk observations, remains unclear. I will present a new diagnostic for elucidating the nature of these unseen companions: the wall shape at the far end of a disk gap. Hydrodynamical simulations show that this shape depends sensitively on the embedded planet\'s mass and location. We focus on two transitional disks with observed candidate planetary companions, HD 100546 and LkCa 15. We have spatially resolved the disk wall in both objects, using mid-infrared interferometry and scattered light imaging, respectively. Comparing the observed wall shapes to hydrodynamical simulations, we are able to derive the masses of these embedded proto-planets.

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