Oral Presentation

Author(s): Michael Hammer (ASIAA)

Presenter: Michael Hammer (ASIAA)

ALMA observations have found a variety of crescent-shaped features of different shapes and sizes in protoplanetary discs. One possible explanation for these features is that they are planet-induced vortices; however, simulations of such vortices have found them to preferentially be elongated in azimuth even though the observed features can be much more compact. We use 2-D and 3-D hydrodynamical simulations run with FARGO3D to test whether vortices should indeed always be elongated. With higher resolution in 2-D, we find that more massive planets can induce very long-lived vortices that can be compact at times. Meanwhile in 3-D, the vertical shear instability can result in low-mass planets inducing long-lived vortices that are compact throughout. We also find that dust feedback does not make vortices appear more compact in 3-D simulations even though previous studies had shown it does in 2-D. The long-lived vortices we find with more massive planets contradicts the low numbers of dust asymmetries observed in real discs, supporting the idea that real discs must have some mechanism for greatly reducing vortex lifetimes.