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Observations of Protoplanetary Disk Structures

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arxiv 2001.05007 v1 pith:6DGM74EH submitted 2020-01-14 astro-ph.EP astro-ph.SR

Observations of Protoplanetary Disk Structures

classification astro-ph.EP astro-ph.SR
keywords diskdisksevolutionaryformationobservationsstructuresfieldgrowth
verification ladder T0 review T1 audit T2 compute T3 formal T4 reserved
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The disks that orbit young stars are the essential conduits and reservoirs of material for star and planet formation. Their structures, meaning the spatial variations of the disk physical conditions, reflect the underlying mechanisms that drive those formation processes. Observations of the solids and gas in these disks, particularly at high resolution, provide fundamental insights on their mass distributions, dynamical states, and evolutionary behaviors. Over the past decade, rapid developments in these areas have largely been driven by observations with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). This review highlights the state of observational research on disk structures, emphasizing three key conclusions that reflect the main branches of the field: (1) Relationships among disk structure properties are also linked to the masses, environments, and evolutionary states of their stellar hosts; (2) There is clear, qualitative evidence for the growth and migration of disk solids, although the implied evolutionary timescales suggest the classical assumption of a smooth gas disk is inappropriate; and (3) Small-scale substructures with a variety of morphologies, locations, scales, and amplitudes -- presumably tracing local gas pressure maxima -- broadly influence the physical and observational properties of disks. The last point especially is reshaping the field, with the recognition that these disk substructures likely trace active sites of planetesimal growth or are the hallmarks of planetary systems at their formation epoch.

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Cited by 22 Pith papers

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