Hints of planet formation signatures in a large-cavity disk studied in the AGE-PRO ALMA Large Program

• Main Authors: Sierra, Anibal, Pérez, Laura M, Agurto-Gangas, Carolina, Miley, James, Zhang, Ke, Pinilla, Paola, Pascucci, Ilaria, Trapman, Leon, Kurtovic, Nicolas, Vioque, Miguel, Deng, Dingshan, Anania, Rossella, Carpenter, John, Cieza, Lucas A, González-Ruilova, Camilo, Hogerheijde, Michiel, Kuznetsova, Aleksandra, Rosotti, Giovanni P, Ruiz-Rodriguez, Dary A, Schwarz, Kamber, Tabone, Benoît, TorresVillanueva, Estephani E
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 23-07-2024
• Subjects: Physics - Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2407.16651

Detecting planet signatures in protoplanetary disks is fundamental to
understanding how and where planets form. In this work, we report dust and gas
observational hints of planet formation in the disk around
2MASS-J16120668-301027, as part of the ALMA Large Program "AGE-PRO: ALMA survey
of Gas Evolution in Protoplanetary disks". The disk was imaged with the Atacama
Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) at Band 6 (1.3 mm) in dust
continuum emission and four molecular lines: $^{12}$CO(J=2-1),
$^{13}$CO(J=2-1), C$^{18}$O(J=2-1), and H$_2$CO(J=3$_{(3,0)}$-2$_{(2,0)}$).
Resolved observations of the dust continuum emission (angular resolution of
$\sim 150$ mas, 20 au) show a ring-like structure with a peak at $0.57 ^{\prime
\prime}$ (75 au), a deep gap with a minimum at 0.24$^{\prime \prime}$ (31 au),
an inner disk, a bridge connecting the inner disk and the outer ring, along
with a spiral arm structure, and a tentative detection (to $3\sigma$) of a
compact emission at the center of the disk gap, with an estimated dust mass of
$\sim 2.7-12.9$ Lunar masses. We also detected a kinematic kink (not coincident
with any dust substructure) through several $^{12}$CO channel maps (angular
resolution $\sim$ 200 mas, 30 au), located at a radius of $\sim 0.875^{\prime
\prime}$ (115.6 au). After modeling the $^{12}$CO velocity rotation around the
protostar, we identified a tentative rotating-like structure at the kink
location with a geometry similar to that of the disk. We discuss potential
explanations for the dust and gas substructures observed in the disk, and their
potential connection to signatures of planet formation.