Constraining Planetary Gas Accretion Rate from H{alpha} Linewidth and Intensity: Case of PDS 70 b and c


Abstract in English

Recent observations of protoplanets embedded in circumstellar disks have shed light on the planet formation process. In particular, detection of hydrogen Balmer-line (H{alpha}) emission gives direct constraints on late-stage accretion onto gas giants. Very recently Haffert et al. (2019) measured the spectral line-widths, in addition to intensities, of H{alpha} emission from the two protoplanets orbiting PDS 70. Here, we study these protoplanets by applying radiation-hydrodynamic models of the shock-heated accretion flow onto protoplanets that Aoyama et al. (2018) has recently developed. As a result, we demonstrate that H{alpha} line-widths combined with intensities lead to narrowing down the possible ranges of the protoplanetary accretion rate and/or mass significantly. While the current spectral resolution is not high enough to derive a definite conclusion regarding their accretion process, high-resolution spectral imaging of growing protoplanets is highly promising.

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