The Astrophysical Journal, 857:3 (11pp), 2018 April 10 https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/aab668 © 2018. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved. Applying a Particle-only Model to the HL Tau Disk Maryam Tabeshian1 and Paul A. Wiegert1,2 1 Department of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Western Ontario, London, ON N6A 3K7, Canada 2 Centre for Planetary Science and Exploration, The University of Western Ontario, London, ON N6A 3K7, Canada;
[email protected] Received 2017 September 29; revised 2018 March 5; accepted 2018 March 11; published 2018 April 6 Abstract Observations have revealed rich structures in protoplanetary disks, offering clues about their embedded planets. Due to the complexities introduced by the abundance of gas in these disks, modeling their structure in detail is computationally intensive, requiring complex hydrodynamic codes and substantial computing power. It would be advantageous if computationally simpler models could provide some preliminary information on these disks. Here we apply a particle-only model (that we developed for gas-poor debris disks) to the gas-rich disk, HL Tauri, to address the question of whether such simple models can inform the study of these systems. Assuming three potentially embedded planets, we match HL Tau’s radial profile fairly well and derive best-fit planetary masses and orbital radii (0.40, 0.02, 0.21 Jupiter masses for the planets orbiting a 0.55 Me star at 11.22, 29.67, 64.23 au). Our derived parameters are comparable to those estimated by others, except for the mass of the second planet. Our simulations also reproduce some narrower gaps seen in the ALMA image away from the orbits of the planets.