Kenny WOOD : St Andrews University
Clues to disc clearing from Spectral Energy DistributionsClues to disc clearing from Spectral Energy Distributions
Physical gaps in disks are a natural consequence of disk-planet interactions. Opacity gaps may arise due to dust clearing or rapid grain growth in certain regions of a disk. I will review evidence from spectral energy distributions for gaps in the inner regions of disks and show that planet-disk interactions provide a plausible explanation for the observed spectra. Recent observations indicate dust segregation within disks with outer regions. This may also be explained by dynamical models of planet-disk interactions which leads to filtration of the small and large particles at the gap edge. Future observations may directly image gaps at mm wavelengths. High spatial resolution imaging may detect the orbital motion of the suspected star-disk system, thereby discriminating among the various gap-clearing mechanisms.Last modified: Sun Jul 9 18:22:08 2006