Disk Evolution Study Through Imaging of Nearby Young Stars (DESTINYS): Late Infall Causing Disk Misalignment and Dynamic Structures in SU Aur*

Gas-rich circumstellar disks are the cradles of planet formation. As such, their evolution will strongly influence the resulting planet population. In the ESO DESTINYS large program, we study these disks within the first 10 Myr of their development with near-infrared scattered-light imaging. Here we present VLT/SPHERE polarimetric observations of the nearby class II system SU Aur in which we resolve the disk down to scales of similar to 7 au. In addition to the new SPHERE observations, we utilize VLT/NACO, HST/STIS, and ALMA archival data. The new SPHERE data show the disk around SU Aur and extended dust structures in unprecedented detail. We resolve several dust tails connected to the Keplerian disk. By comparison with ALMA data, we show that these dust tails represent material falling onto the disk. The disk itself shows an intricate spiral structure and a shadow lane, cast by an inner, misaligned disk component. Our observations suggest that SU Aur is undergoing late infall of material, which can explain the observed disk structures. SU Aur is the clearest observational example of this mechanism at work and demonstrates that late accretion events can still occur in the class II phase, thereby significantly affecting the evolution of circumstellar disks. Constraining the frequency of such events with additional observations will help determine whether this process is responsible for the spin-orbit misalignment in evolved exoplanet systems.

Automated summary

Gas-rich circumstellar disks are crucial for planet formation, and their evolution can significantly impact the resulting planet population. Observations of the nearby star system SU Aur using VLT/SPHERE have revealed detailed structures within the disk, including dust tails connected to the Keplerian disk and a shadow lane from a misaligned inner component. These observations suggest late material infall in SU Aur, influencing the evolution of circumstellar disks and potentially contributing to spin-orbit misalignment in evolved exoplanet systems.