THE UNIQUE GEOMETRIES AND ILLUMINATIONS OF PROTOPLANETARY DISKS AND THEIR POTENTIAL EXOPLANETS

Abstract

The discovery of new protoplanetary disk structures can help reveal the dynamics of the young planetary systems and potentially point to planet formation within the disk. In my dissertation, I present investigations of three stellar/sub-stellar systems; DoAr 28, VHS J125601.92-125723.9 (VHS 1256), and HD 163296. First, I will discuss the first near-IR scattered light detection of the protoplanetary disk around DoAr 28. I modeled both the observed SED and H-band PI imagery of the system and found that our best fit models have a partially depleted inner gap from the dust sublimation radius out to ~8 au. Second, I present and analyze Subaru/IRCS L' and M' images of the nearby M dwarf VHS 1256, which was recently claimed to have a ~11 Mjup companion (VHS 1256 b). I found that the central star is a binary and conclude that VHS 1256 is most likely a very low mass (VLM) hierarchical triple system. Finally, I present Subaru/HiCIAO H-band imagery, Subaru/SCExAO near-IR imagery, and HST/STIS optical imagery of the protoplanetary disk around HD 163296. I demonstrate that the new Subaru/HiCIAO and HST/STIS imagery exhibits disk illumination variability on timescales < 3 months, possibly due to a non-axisymmetric distribution of dust clouds. show that our SCExAO/CHARIS observations fail to recover the previously identified 6-7 Mjup planetary candidate. Additionally, I did not detect the predicted launch of a new HH-knot nor did I detect any of the previously observed HH-knots, suggesting a potential change in the jet of HD 163296.