Connecting protoplanetary disk morphologies with exoplanet architectures

Abstract: Disk substructures, including gaps and rings, spiral arms, and asymmetries, are prevalent in high angular resolution images. These features may be imprinted by gravitational interactions with embedded planets. However, the confirmation of these planets remains challenging as direct imaging campaigns are still limited to massive Jovian planets. In this talk, I will focus on the potential imprints of lower-mass planets in multi-planet systems, and show that Neptunes in compact configurations are expected to give rise to long-lived and dust-trapping vortices in between their orbits, readily observable in high-resolution images. These distinctive features, already observed in a handful of systems, may be common given the high expected occurrence of stars hosting multiple cold Neptunes—a sample that includes the Sun with Uranus and Neptune.