Peter Pan disks are a recently-discovered class of long-lived protoplanetary disks around low-mass stars that survive 5-10 times longer than typical protoplanetary disks. Whilst astronomers have been aware of the existence of these disks since 2016, questions around how and why they live so long and the implications for how planets form have been left unanswered.
An artist’s impression of the Peter Pan disk around WISE J080822.18-644357.3, a red dwarf located about 331 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Carina. Image credit: Jonathan Holden / NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
“The existence of these long-lived disks was really surprising, and finding out why these disks can survive longer than expected could be critical for helping us understand more about disk evolution and planet formation in general,” said Dr. Thomas Haworth, an astronomer in the School of Physics and Astronomy at Queen Mary University of London.
“A particularly interesting point is that Peter Pan disks have so far only been found around low mass stars, and these low mass stars are generally being found to host lots of planets.”
“The large disk masses that we need to end up with Peter Pan disks could be an important ingredient that allows these planets to exist.”
In the study, Dr. Haworth and his colleague, Dr. Gavin Coleman, used computer simulations to look at a range of possible starting configurations and ways in which the disk evolves to reveal the combination of conditions needed to form Peter Pan disks, which they termed ‘Neverland’s parameters.’
They found these disks only form in lonely environments, away from other stars, and that they need to start out much larger than normal disks.
“Most stars form in big groups containing around 100,000 stars however it seems that Peter Pan disks can’t form in these environments,” said Dr. Coleman, also from the School of Physics and Astronomy at Queen Mary University of London.
“They need to be much more isolated from their stellar neighbors as the radiation from other stars would blow these disks away.”
“They also need to start out massive, so they have more gas to lose and are therefore able to live for much longer.”
The study was published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters.
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Gavin A.L. Coleman & Thomas J. Haworth. 2020. Peter Pan discs: finding Neverland’s parameters. MNRASL 496 (1): L111-L115; doi: 10.1093/mnrasl/slaa098
