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Driving Spiral Arms in the Circumstellar Disks of HD 100546 and HD 141569A

  • Authors: Alice C. Quillen, Peggy Varnière, Ivan Minchev, and Adam Frank

Quillen et al. 2005 The Astronomical Journal 129 2481.

  • Provider: AAS Journals

Caption: Fig. 5.

Role of eccentricity in the disk morphology for external bound stellar‐mass companions. These simulations (M, N, and O) have mass ratios ﹩q=0.2﹩ and disk aspect ratios ﹩h/ r=0.04﹩. The position of periapse is approximately 1.1 times the outer disk radius in all simulations. The top panels have perturber eccentricities ﹩e=0.2﹩, the middle panels ﹩e=0.4﹩, and the bottom panels ﹩e=0.6﹩. Left to right, each panel shows simulations just before periapse (left), at periapse, after periapse, and nearly at apoapse (right). The small circles show the location of the perturber. Just following periapse, asymmetric spiral arms are pulled out of the disk. The perturber truncates and compresses the disk, enforcing a higher gas density near the edge and a sharper edge profile. Spiral density waves driven into the disk cause elevated accretion episodes in the disk interior.

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