The Disk Substructures at High Angular Resolution Project (DSHARP). IX. A High-definition Study of the HD 163296 Planet-forming Disk

The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array observations of protoplanetary disks acquired by the Disk Substructure at High Angular Resolution Project resolve the dust and gas emission on angular scales as small as 3 astronomical units, offering an unprecedented detailed view of the environment where planets form. In this Letter, we present and discuss observations of the HD 163296 protoplanetary disk that imaged the 1.25 mm dust continuum and 12CO J = 2–1 rotational line emission at a spatial resolution of 4 and 10 au, respectively. The continuum observations resolve and allow us to characterize the previously discovered dust rings at radii of 68 and 100. They also reveal new small-scale structures, such as a dark gap at 10 au, a bright ring at 15 au, a dust crescent at a radius of 55 au, and several fainter azimuthal asymmetries. The observations of the CO and dust emission provide information about the vertical structure of the disk and allow us to directly constrain the dust extinction optical depth at the dust rings. Furthermore, the observed asymmetries in the dust continuum emission corroborate the hypothesis that the complex structure of the HD 163296 disk is the result of the gravitational interaction with yet-unseen planets.