ALMA Observations of Proper Motions of the Dust Clumps in the Protoplanetary Disk MWC 758

Abstract

To study the dust dynamics in the dust-trapping vortices in the protoplanetary disk around MWC 758, we analyzed the 1.3 mm continuum images of the MWC 758 disk obtained with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array in 2017 and 2021. We detect proper motions of 22 mas and 24 mas in the two dust clumps at radii of 0.″32 and 0.″54 in the disk on the plane of the sky, respectively. On the assumption that the dust clumps are located in the disk midplane, the velocities of the observed proper motions along the azimuthal direction of the inner and outer dust clumps are sub- and super-Keplerian, respectively, and both have angular velocities corresponding to the Keplerian angular velocity at a radius of 0.″46 ± 0.″04. This deviation from the Keplerian motion is not expected in the conventional theory of vortices formed by the Rossby wave instability. The observed non-Keplerian proper motions of the dust clumps are unlikely due to the disk warp and eccentricity, nor are they associated with any predicted planets. The two dust clumps are likely spatially coincident with the infrared spirals. In addition, we detect the changes in the intensity profiles of the dust clumps over the 4 yr span. Therefore, we suggest that the observed proper motions are possibly due to changes in the density distributions in the dust clumps caused by their interaction with the spirals in the disk.