PF-02-0028

Dynamical Consequence of Shadows Cast to the Outer Protoplanetary Disks

Zehao Su

Many protoplanetary disks (PPD) show evidence of shadows in ourter disks observed in scattered lights that are cast from the disk inner region, while in the meantime present substructures of various kinds in the submillimeter. As stellar irradiation is the primary heating source for outer PPDs, the presence of such shadows thus suggest inhomogeneous heating of the outer disk in azimuth. We study the dynamical consequence of shadows cast to the outer protoplanetary disks as potential cause of disk substructure formation. As a first exploration, we run idealized 2D disk simulations of the outer disk with azimuthally-varying cooling prescription. We find that shadows can potentially lead to the formation of a variety of types of substructure including rings, spirals and crecents, depending on the viscosity, cooling time, etc. Implications for disk observations and future perspectives will be discussed.