2015/03/20 by Valerie A. Rapson, Joel H. Kastner, Sean M. Andrews +4 · 35 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astro and Planetary Science #Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies #Circumbinary planet #Flux (metallurgy) #Halo #Linear polarization #Planet #RADIUS #Radiation pressure #Solar System #Starlight #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #astro-ph.SR
paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/2041-8205/803/1/l10
published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters 803(1), L10 (IOP Publishing) · 13 pages, 4 figures, Accepted to ApJ Letters
arxiv created 2015/03/20 · openalex publication_date 2015/04/08 · arxiv updated 2015/06/24 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We report the presence of scattered light from dust grains located in the giant planet formation region of the circumbinary disk orbiting the ∼20 Myr old close (∼0.045 AU separation) binary system V4046 Sgr AB based on observations with the new Gemini Planet Imager (GPI) instrument. These GPI images probe to within ∼7 AU of the central binary with a linear spatial resolution of ∼3 AU, and are therefore capable of revealing the dust disk structure within a region corresponding to the giant planets in our solar system. GPI imaging reveals a relatively narrow (FWHM ∼ 10 AU) ring of polarized near-infrared flux whose brightness peaks at ∼14 AU. This ∼14 AU radius ring is surrounded by a fainter outer halo of scattered light extending to ∼45 AU, which coincides with previously detected millimeter-wave thermal dust emission. The presence of small grains that efficiently scatter starlight well inside the millimeter-wavelength disk cavity supports current models of planet formation which suggest that planet–disk interactions can generate pressure traps that impose strong radial variations in the particle size distribution throughout the disk.