Shadows cast by precessing annuli as evidence for an inclined planet in HD 139614
astro-ph.EP
Submitted: 2026-10-05
Updated: 2026-10-05
Comments: 21 pages, 13 figures
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
The gist: We analyse scattered-light images at multiple epochs of the protoplanetary disc HD139614 taken with GPI and SPHERE instruments.
Abstract
We analyse scattered-light images at multiple epochs of the protoplanetary disc HD139614 taken with GPI and SPHERE instruments. We show that the azimuthal distribution of the surface brightness of the inner bright ring (13-21 au) varies with time (likely caused by a structure in the inner-disc at about1 au) and constrain the timescale of this variation to be <11 months. We show that inner arc (31-44 au) is likely a spiral and tightly wound, measuring a pitch angle of 6.1 plus or minus1.2. Additionally, we construct a physical model to explain the broad shadow across about2/3 of the outer disc and the azimuthally asymmetric bright ring (which has a shadow not aligned with the broad shadow). We model the disc using 1D warp equations with a fast radiative transfer code to produce scattered-light images. We setup the disc as three annuli separated by gaps with an inclined perturbing planet between the inner two annuli. The planet causes the inner annuli to tilt and precess independently casting broad shadows across the outer (un-tilted) annulus. These shadows combine to produce a shadow across about2/3 of the outer disc and an asymmetric bright ring which matches the observations of HD139614. The precession of the annuli is periodic (so the model matches the observations multiple times) with long precession time-scales (8.4 times10 cubed and 7.2 times10 4 years for the inner and middle annulus respectively) so the shadows are effectively static over accessible observational time-scales.
Sources
- Structured Distributions of Gas and Solids in Protoplanetary Disks
- The surprising evolution of the shadow on the TW Hya disk
- An Observational Perspective of Transitional Disks
- The Integral Field Spectrograph for the Gemini Planet Imager
- SPHERE IRDIS and IFS astrometric strategy and calibration
- On-sky performance during verification and commissioning of the Gemini Planet Imager's adaptive optics system
- Radiative Transfer Modeling of a Shadowed Protoplanetary Disk assisted by a Neural Network
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