2011ApJ...739...10M

We consider the effects of self-gravity on the hydrostatic balance in the vertical direction of a gaseous disk and discuss the possible signature of the self-gravity that may be captured by direct imaging observations of protoplanetary disks in the future. In this paper, we consider a vertically isothermal disk in order to isolate the effects of self-gravity. The specific disk model we consider in this paper is the one with a radial surface density gap, at which the Toomre's Q-parameter of the disk varies rapidly in the radial direction. We calculate the vertical structure of the disk including the effects of self-gravity. We then calculate the scattered light and the dust thermal emission. We find that if the disk is massive enough and the effects of self-gravity come into play, a weak bump-like structure at the gap edge appears in the near-infrared (NIR) scattered light, while no such bump-like structure is seen in the submillimeter (sub-mm) dust continuum image. The appearance of the bump is caused by the variation of the height of the surface in the NIR wavelength. If such a bump-like feature is detected in future direct imaging observations, combined with sub-mm observations, it will give us useful information about the physical states of the disk.