The gravitational influence of a planet on a nearby disk provides a powerful tool for detecting and studying extrasolar planetary systems. Here we demonstrate that gaps can be opened in dynamically cold debris disks at the mean-motion resonances of an orbiting planet. The gaps are opened away from the orbit of the planet itself, revealing that not all disk gaps need contain a planetary body. These gaps are large and deep enough to be detectable in resolved disk images for a wide range of reasonable disk-planet parameters, though we are not aware of any such gaps detected to date. The gap shape and size are diagnostic of the planet location, eccentricity and mass, and allow one to infer the existence of unseen planets, as well as many important parameters of both seen and unseen planets in these systems. We present expressions to allow the planetary mass and semimajor axis to be calculated from observed gap width and location.Subject headings: planet-disk interactions -planets and satellites: detection

We report on a multi-observatory campaign to examine asteroid 3200 Phaethon during its December 2017 close approach to Earth, in order to improve our measurements of its fundamental parameters, and to search for surface variations, cometary activity and fragmentation. The mean colors of Phaethon are B-V = 0.702 ± 0.004, V-R = 0.309 ± 0.003, R-I = 0.266 ± 0.004, neutral to slightly blue, consistent with previous classifications of Phaethon as a F-type or B-type asteroid (Tholen 1985;Green et al. 1985). Variations in Phaethon's B-V colors (but not V-R or R-I) with observer sub-latitude are seen and may be associated with craters observed by the Arecibo radar (Taylor et al. 2019). High cadence photometry over phases from 20 to 100 degrees allows a fit to the values of the HG photometric parameters; H = 14.57±0.02, 13.63±0.02, 13.28±0.02, 13.07±0.02; G = 0.00±0.01, −0.09±0.01, −0.10±0.01, −0.08±0.01 in the BVRI filters respectively; the negative G values are consistent with other observations of F type asteroids e.g (Lagerkvist & Magnusson 1990). Light curve variations were seen that are also consistent with concavities reported by Arecibo, indicative of large craters on Phaethon's surface whose ejecta may be the source of the Geminid meteoroid stream. A search for gas/dust production set an upper limit of 0.06 ± 0.02 kg/s when Phaethon was 1.449 AU from the Sun, and 0.2 ± 0.1 kg/s at 1.067 AU. A search for meter-class fragments accompanying Phaethon did not find any whose on-sky motion was not also consistent with background main belt asteroids.

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Structures observed in debris disks may be caused by gravitational interaction with planetary or stellar companions. These perturbed disks are often thought to indicate the presence of planets and offer insights into the properties of both the disk and the perturbing planets. Gaps in debris disks may indicate a planet physically present within the gap, but such gaps can also occur away from the planet's orbit at mean-motion resonances (MMRs), and this is the focus of our interest here. We extend our study of planet-disk interaction through MMRs, presented in an earlier paper, to systems in which the perturbing planet has moderate orbital eccentricity, a common occurrence in exoplanetary systems. In particular, a new result is that the 3:1 MMR becomes distinct at higher eccentricity, while its effects are absent for circular planetary orbits. We also only consider gravitational interaction with a planetary body of at least 1M J . Our earlier work shows that even a 1 Earth mass planet can theoretically open an MMR gap; however, given the narrow gap that can be opened by a low-mass planet, its observability would be questionable. We find that the widths, locations, and shapes of two prominent structures, the 2:1 and 3:1 MMRs, could be used to determine the mass, semimajor axis, and eccentricity of the planetary perturber and present an algorithm for doing so. These MMR structures can be used to narrow the position and even determine the planetary properties (such as mass) of any inferred but as-yetunseen planets within a debris disk. We also briefly discuss the implications of eccentric disks on brightness asymmetries and their dependence on the wavelengths with which these disks are observed.

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 M ⊙ 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. The nature of these gaps is debated but, based on our simulations, we argue they could result from planet-disk interactions via mean-motion resonances, and need not contain planets. Our results suggest that a simple particle-only model can be used as a first step to understanding dynamical structures in gas disks, particularly those formed by planets, and determine some parameters of their hidden planets, serving as useful initial inputs to hydrodynamic models which are needed to investigate disk and planet properties more thoroughly.