On the Origin of Banded Structure in Dusty Protoplanetary Disks: HL Tau and TW Hya

Abstract

Abstract Recent observations of HL Tau revealed remarkably detailed structure within the system’s circumstellar disk. A range of hypotheses have been proposed to explain the morphology, including, e.g., planet–disk interactions, condensation fronts, and secular gravitational instabilities. While embedded planets seem to be able to explain some of the major structure in the disk through interactions with gas and dust, the substructures, such as low-contrast rings and bands, are not so easily reproduced. Here, we show that dynamical interactions between three planets (only two of which are modeled) and an initial population of large planetesimals can potentially explain both the major and minor banded features within the system. In this context, the small grains, which are coupled to the gas and reveal the disk morphology, are produced by the collisional evolution of the newly formed planetesimals, which are ubiquitous in the system and are decoupled from the gas.