Inclined Massive Planets in a Protoplanetary Disc: Gap Opening, Disc Breaking, and Observational Signatures

Understand

We carry out three-dimensional hydrodynamical simulations to study planet-disc interactions for inclined high mass planets, focusing on the disc's secular evolution induced by the planet.

• We find that, when the planet is massive enough and the induced gap is deep enough, the disc inside the planet's orbit breaks from the outer disc.
• The inner and outer discs precess around the system's total angular momentum vector independently at different precession rates, which causes significant disc misalignment.
• We derive the analytical formulae, which are also verified numerically, for: 1) the relationship between the planet mass and the depth/width of the induced gap, 2) the migration and inclination damping rates for massive inclined planets, and 3) the condition under which the inner and outer discs can break and undergo differential precession.