Observing Planetary Systems in the Making

Andrea Isella (1) , Luca Ricci , Sean Andrews , Clément Baruteau (2, 3) , Jean-Philippe Berger (4) , Edwin Bergin (5) , Til Birnstiel , Brendan Bowler (6) , Crystal Brogan , Carlos Carrasco Gonzalez , Claire Chandler , Thayne Currie (7) , Jeffrey N Cuzzi (8) , Gennaro d'Angelo , Ruobing Dong (9) , Gaspard Duchêne (4) , Anne Dutrey (10) , Barbara Ercolano (11) , Catherine Espaillat (12) , Paul Estrada (13) , Mario Flock , Andras Gaspar (14) , Thomas P. Greene (8) , Jane Huang , Hannah Jang-Condell , Christopher Johns-Krull , Grant Kennedy (15) , J. Serena Kim , Florian Kirchschlager (16) , Stefan Kraus (17) , Sebastiaan Krijt , Hui Li , Wladimir Lyra (18) , Bruce Macintosh , John Monnier , Karin Danielsson Öberg (19) , Ilaria Pascucci , Laura Perez (20) , Romain G. Petrov (21) , Paola Pinilla , Stephen T. Ridgway (22) , Keivan Stassun , Theo A. ten Brummelaar (23) , Leonardo Testi (24) , Neal J. Turner , Gerard van Belle , Nienke van Der Marel , Alycia Weinberger , Jacob White (25) , Jonathan Williams , David Wilner , Alwyn Wootten , Ya-Lin Wu (26) , Andrew Youdin , Ke Zhang (27) , Zhaohuan Zhu

1 Rice University [Houston]
2 AIM (UMR7158 / UMR_E_9005 / UM_112) - Astrophysique Interprétation Modélisation
3 IRAP - Institut de recherche en astrophysique et planétologie
4 IPAG - Institut de Planétologie et d'Astrophysique de Grenoble
5 CfA - Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
6 McDonald Observatory
7 NAOJ - National Astronomical Observatory of Japan
8 ARC - NASA Ames Research Center
9 Steward Observatory
10 AMOR 2019
11 University of Exeter
12 BU - Boston University [Boston]
13 SETI - Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute
14 LPL - Lunar and Planetary Laboratory [University of Arizona]
15 Institute of Astronomy [Cambridge]
16 UCL - University College of London [London]
17 MPIFR - Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie
18 Department of Astrophysics
19 Umeå University, Sweden
20 Molecular Genetics Unit
21 LUAN - Laboratoire Universitaire d'Astrophysique de Nice
22 NOAO - National Optical Astronomy Observatory
23 CHARA (Center for High Angular Resolution Astronomy) Array
24 OAA - INAF - Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri
25 School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Arizona, Tempe)
26 CERV - Centre Européen de Réalité Virtuelle
27 Flathead Lake Biological Station

The unprecedented imaging capabilities provided by ALMA and modern near-infrared high-contrast cameras have served as the foundation of a new and rapidly expanding field of research posed to unveil the origin of planetary systems. The outstanding discoveries obtained in the current decade have demonstrated that the outer regions of protoplanetary disks (>10 au) are much more interesting than expected. The direct imaging of newborn wide separation planets and the myriad of structures discovered in the dust and gas emission expose the complexity of the planet formation process. These unexpected findings urge for the construction of telescopes capable of imaging the terrestrial planet formation region (<10 au), where the vast majority of planets are expected to form. We argue that achieving sub-au imaging capabilities at wavelength between 1 mm and 1 cm should be a top priority for astronomy in the next decade. At these wavelengths the dust emission is optically thin, enabling us to peer through the densest disk regions and image planetary systems in formation. At the same time, we urge to intensify efforts aimed at developing sub-au resolution high-contrast planet detection techniques in the thermal infrared with the ELTs and infrared long-baseline interferometry. These capabilities are required to directly image newborn planets and measure their physical properties.

Domains: Cosmology and Extra-Galactic Astrophysics [astro-ph.CO]

Andrea Isella, Luca Ricci, Sean Andrews, Clément Baruteau, Jean-Philippe Berger, et al.. Observing Planetary Systems in the Making. Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 2019, Astro2020: Decadal Survey on Astronomy and Astrophysics, science white papers, no. 174, 51 (3), pp.id. 174. ⟨hal-02145472⟩