Periodic Reporting for period 1 - PROTOPLANETS (Establishing a global observational view of the early stages of planet formation and evolution)
Berichtszeitraum: 2022-01-01 bis 2023-06-30
Recent observing campaigns have revealed a great diversity in exoplanetary systems whose origin is yet to be understood. It is still unclear how and when planets form, and how they evolve and interact with their host protoplanetary disks while the latter naturally evolve. Those fundamental questions are at the core of the problem addressed in the project, with a focus on the detection and characterization of forming, giant planets as well as on understanding the conditions for terrestrial planet formation.
It is a fundamental problem for our society, as it lies at the heart of the question of the origin of life – replaced in the context of our own solar system, the formation and evolution of giant planets like Jupiter at early stages have a direct impact on the subsequent formation of terrestrial planets and the onset of life.
The main objective of PROTOPLANETS is to establish a global observational picture of the early stages of planetary systems formation and evolution. By searching for protoplanets and studying their imprint on their birth environments, we can constrain the processes happening while planets form.
It is a fundamental problem for our society, as it lies at the heart of the question of the origin of life – replaced in the context of our own solar system, the formation and evolution of giant planets like Jupiter at early stages have a direct impact on the subsequent formation of terrestrial planets and the onset of life.
The main objective of PROTOPLANETS is to establish a global observational picture of the early stages of planetary systems formation and evolution. By searching for protoplanets and studying their imprint on their birth environments, we can constrain the processes happening while planets form.
In the first 18 months of the project, our team designed various projects aiming to:
- Search for protoplanets embedded in disks as observed in direct imaging and through their impact on the disk kinematics
- Characterize protoplanets properties through the modelling of kinematical deviations with a semi-analytical approach
- Understand the physico-chemical conditions in disks shaped by giant planets
- Study the gas dynamics in the immediate vicinity of a planet and its chemical evolution
- Understand the evolution of dust grains in protoplanetary disks shaped by planets
In addition, team members wrote observing proposals to study the chemical conditions in a disk that host a protoplanet candidate to probe the spirals induced by giant planets close to the disk midplane, to look at the conditions for planet formation in crowded and irradiated star forming regions, to understand the origin of substructures observed in disks, to understand the impact of the environment on planet formation and to constrain the structure of the terrestrial planet formation regions when shaped by giant planets.
Main results are:
- Detection of a protoplanet candidate
- Characterization of 40 protoplanetary disks, their dust properties and report on non-detection limits
- Physico-chemical characterization of disk hosting two giant planets
- Accepted JWST program for Cycle 2 to search for protoplanets in disks
- Search for protoplanets embedded in disks as observed in direct imaging and through their impact on the disk kinematics
- Characterize protoplanets properties through the modelling of kinematical deviations with a semi-analytical approach
- Understand the physico-chemical conditions in disks shaped by giant planets
- Study the gas dynamics in the immediate vicinity of a planet and its chemical evolution
- Understand the evolution of dust grains in protoplanetary disks shaped by planets
In addition, team members wrote observing proposals to study the chemical conditions in a disk that host a protoplanet candidate to probe the spirals induced by giant planets close to the disk midplane, to look at the conditions for planet formation in crowded and irradiated star forming regions, to understand the origin of substructures observed in disks, to understand the impact of the environment on planet formation and to constrain the structure of the terrestrial planet formation regions when shaped by giant planets.
Main results are:
- Detection of a protoplanet candidate
- Characterization of 40 protoplanetary disks, their dust properties and report on non-detection limits
- Physico-chemical characterization of disk hosting two giant planets
- Accepted JWST program for Cycle 2 to search for protoplanets in disks
The development of theoretical frameworks for the analysis of dust evolution coupled with disk kinematics and for the kinematical deviations due to planets have the potential to bring significant constraints on the nature of protoplanets and the properties of the overall population of giant planets in disks. New data, at high spectral and spatial resolution will allow to probe both inner and outer disk regions, a key approach to assess the diversity of imprints left by those giant planets.