Hunting for Young Planets
The detection and study of young planets will provide the most straightforward constaints on our planet formation models. ALMA disk substructure observations have opened up a new window for young planet studies, potentially probing these low mass planets at wide orbits. Limited by the current sensitivity of direct imaging, the connection of disk substructure to planet still needs further evidences in most cases. A few promising directions we have:
1) With ALMA, we can detect planet horseshoe orbit to reveal the embedded planet, with quite precise location identification if dust trapping in the two Lagrangian points is present. See Long, F. et al. 2022, ApJL.
- we have very recently offered LBTI DDT time to directly search for that planet candidate in LkCa 15 (11/2022).
2) With ALMA, we may detect circumplanetary gas/dust disk that probes the mass growth of the embedded planet (but currently limited to a few Jupiter mass planet). See e.g., Bae, J. et al. 2022, ApJL;
3) I'm looking forward to the capability of JWST in finding more young planets!