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Are Elias 2-27's spiral arms driven by self-gravity, or by a companion? A comparative spiral morphology study
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Forgan, Duncan H., Ilee, John D. and Meru, Farzana (2018) Are Elias 2-27's spiral arms driven by self-gravity, or by a companion? A comparative spiral morphology study. The Astrophysical Journal Letters, 860 (1). L5. doi:10.3847/2041-8213/aac7c9 ISSN 2041-8205.
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WRAP-Elias 2-27's-spiral-arms-driven--self-gravity-companion-Meru-2018.pdf - Accepted Version - Requires a PDF viewer. Download (2142Kb) | Preview |
Official URL: https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/aac7c9
Abstract
The spiral waves detected in the protostellar disc surrounding Elias 2-27 have been suggested as evidence of the disc being gravitationally unstable. However, previous work has shown that a massive, stable disc undergoing an encounter with a massive companion are also consistent with the observations. We compare the spiral morphology of smoothed particle hydrodynamic simulations modelling both cases. The gravitationally unstable disc produces symmetric, tightly wound spiral arms with constant pitch angle, as predicted by the literature. The companion disc's arms are asymmetric, with pitch angles that increase with radius. However, these arms are not well-fitted by standard analytic expressions, due to the high disc mass and relatively low companion mass. We note that differences (or indeed similarities) in morphology between pairs of spirals is a crucial discriminant between scenarios for Elias 2-27, and hence future studies must fit spiral arms individually. If Elias 2-27 continues to show symmetric tightly wound spiral arms in future observations, then we posit that it is the first observed example of a gravitationally unstable protostellar disc
Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Subjects: | Q Science > QB Astronomy | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Divisions: | Faculty of Science, Engineering and Medicine > Science > Physics | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Stars, Hydrodynamics, Protoplanetary disks | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Journal or Publication Title: | The Astrophysical Journal Letters | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Publisher: | Institute of Physics Publishing, Inc. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
ISSN: | 2041-8205 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Official Date: | 7 June 2018 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Dates: |
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Volume: | 860 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Number: | 1 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Article Number: | L5 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
DOI: | 10.3847/2041-8213/aac7c9 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Publication Status: | Published | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Reuse Statement (publisher, data, author rights): | © 2018. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Access rights to Published version: | Restricted or Subscription Access | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Date of first compliant deposit: | 29 May 2018 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Date of first compliant Open Access: | 18 October 2018 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
RIOXX Funder/Project Grant: |
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