Gravitational instabilities (GIs) are most likely a fundamental process during the early stages of protoplanetary disc formation. Recently, there have been detections of spiral features in young, embedded objects that appear consistent with GI-driven structure. It is crucial to perform hydrodynamic and radiative transfer simulations of gravitationally unstable discs in order to assess the validity of GIs in such objects, and constrain optimal targets for future observations.We utilise the radiative transfer code LIME to produce continuum emission maps of a 0:17M(sun) self-gravitating protosolar-like disc. We note the limitations of using LIME as is and explore methods to improve upon the default gridding. We use CASA to produce synthetic observations of 270 continuum emission maps generated across diff erent frequencies, inclinations and dust opacities. We fi nd that the spiral structure of our protosolar-like disc model is distinguishable across the majority of our parameter space after 1 hour of observation, and is especially prominent at 230 GHz due to the favourable combination of angular resolution and sensitivity. Disc mass derived from the observations is sensitive to the assumed dust opacities and temperatures, and therefore can be underestimated by a factor of at least 30 at 850 GHz and 2.5 at 90 GHz. As a result, this e ffect could retrospectively validate GIs in discs previously thought not massive enough to be gravitationally unstable, which could have a signi cant impact on the understanding of the formation and evolution of protoplanetary discs.
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)