Determine whether a low-mass planetary chain sculpts the debris-disk inner edge

Determine whether a chain of equal, lower-mass planets interior to the RX J0534.0-0221 debris disk is responsible for shaping its steep inner edge.

Background

The detected planet RX J0534.0-0221 b orbits far inside the debris disk and is therefore unlikely to have sculpted the disk inner edge in situ. The authors assess an alternative scenario in which multiple lower-mass planets, arranged in a dynamically stable chain, truncate the disk.

Their estimate requires planets with minimum masses of approximately 0.15 Jupiter masses under a specified interplanet spacing. The JWST/NIRCam F444W detection-probability map reaches only the 50% contour at the location of the outermost putative planet, so the observations do not decisively exclude this configuration. The question remains unresolved because the chain could consist of even lower-mass planets if the spacing were more compact.