Elouan Spaan   (Netherlands)

 elspaan @ mpia.de

Kinematic Signatures of Warps in Disks

Misaligned or ‘warped’ disks are ubiquitous as they are a natural by-product of disk formation. In protoplanetary disks, mechanisms that can lead to the formation of warps include perturbations from (sub) stellar companions, flybys, and (late stage) infall. Regardless of origin, warps have a significant impact on the disk structure and through this, on planet formation. Warps can be constrained using disk kinematics, as they lead to large-scale deviations of the gas velocity from Keplerian rotation. Kinematic structures of warps can potentially be identified by fitting a simple Keplerian model to measured line-of-sight velocities of gas emission lines and analysing the residual maps. However, the specific signatures remain unconstrained because of unresolved degeneracy with other structure-altering processes such as radial gas flows.

In my first project, I therefore investigate an alternative approach where I include a warped geometry in the kinematical model, with the aims of lifting the degeneracy. I will first test the feasibility and comparative performance of this method through application to mock observations of warped disks. The outcomes will then be used as benchmark for application to a selection of target disks as observed with the exoALMA Large Program, with the ultimate aim of bringing us closer to unravelling the origins of these warped structures.

Supervisor:    Myriam Benisty   (MPIA)