Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: Misaligned circumbinary disks will produce dust traffic jams during alignment or antialignment to the binary orbital plane. We conduct a hydrodynamical simulation of an initially misaligned circumbinary disk undergoing polar alignment with multiple dust species. Due to differential precession between the gas and dust components, multiple dust traffic jams are produced within the disk during polar alignment. The radial locations of the dust traffic jams depend on the Stokes number of the grains, which depends on grain size. We compute the dust temperature structure using postprocessing radiative transfer to produce continuum images at centimeter wavelengths. Multiple distinct rings emerge in the continuum images, corresponding to the dust traffic jams. The angular resolution of upcoming observations from the Square Kilometre Array and the next-generation Very Large Array will be sufficient to detect centimeter-sized grains in protoplanetary disks and resolve the widths of dust traffic jams. Therefore, dust traffic jams resulting from the differential precession of gas and dust in misaligned circumbinary disks will be a prime target for more extended wavelength observations.
Institutions: Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Academia Sinica, Academia Sinica, University of Warwick, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Institut de Planétologie et d'Astrophysique de Grenoble, Monash University, Université Grenoble Alpes, University of Cambridge, Delft University of Technology
Language: English
Subfield: Astronomy and Astrophysics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $2,400
OpenAlex ID: W4404832295