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Register a new userEvidence for CO depletion in the inner regions of gas-rich protoplanetary disks
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Gerrit van der Plas
Publication date
2009
fields
Physics
and research's language is
English
Authors
G. van der Plas
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We investigate the physical properties and spatial distribution of Carbon Monoxide (CO) gas in the disks around the Herbig Ae/Be stars HD 97048 and HD 100546. Using high-spectral-resolution 4.588-4.715 $mu$m spectra containing fundamental CO emission taken with CRIRES on the VLT, we probe the circumstellar gas and model the kinematics of the emission lines. By using spectro-astrometry on the spatially resolved targets, we constrain the physical size of the emitting regions in the disks. We resolve, spectrally and spatially, the emission of the $^{13}$CO v(1-0) vibrational band and the $^{12}$CO $v=1-0, v=2-1, v=3-2$ and $v=4-3$ vibrational bands in both targets, as well as the $^{12}$CO $v=5-4$ band in HD 100546. Modeling of the CO emission with a homogeneous disk in Keplerian motion, yields a best fit with an inner and outer radius of the CO emitting region of 11 and $geq$ 100 AU for HD 97048. HD 100546 is not fit well with our model, but we derive a lower limit on the inner radius of 8 AU. The fact that gaseous [OI] emission was previously detected in both targets at significantly smaller radii suggests that CO may be effectively destroyed at small radii in the surface layers of these disks
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The study of warm molecular gas in the inner region (<10 AU) of circumstellar disks around young stars is of significant importance to understand how planets are forming. This inner zone of disks can now be explored in unprecedented detail with the high spectral (R=100000) and spatial resolution spectrometer CRIRES at the VLT. This paper investigates a set of disks that show CO ro-vibrational v=1-0 4.7 micron emission line profiles characterized by a single, narrow peak and a broad base extending to > 50 km/s, not readily explained by just Keplerian motions of gas in the inner disk. The line profiles are very symmetric, have high line/continuum ratios and have central velocity shifts of <5 km/s relative to the stellar radial velocity. The disks in this subsample are accreting onto their central stars at high rates relative to the parent sample. All disks show CO lines from v=2, suggesting that the lines are excited, at least in part, by UV fluorescence. Analysis of their spatial distribution shows that the lines are formed within a few AU of the central star. It is concluded that these broad centrally peaked line profiles are inconsistent with the double peaked profiles expected from just an inclined disk in Keplerian rotation. Alternative non-Keplerian line formation mechanisms are discussed, including thermally and magnetically launched winds and funnel flows. The most likely interpretation is that these profiles originate from a combination of emission from the inner part (< a few AU) of a circumstellar disk, perhaps with enhanced turbulence, and a slow moving disk wind, launched by either EUV emission or soft X-rays.
We present a study of the evolution of the inner few astronomical units of protoplanetary disks around low-mass stars. We consider nearby stellar groups with ages spanning from 1 to 11 Myr, distributed into four age bins. Combining PANSTARSS photometry with spectral types, we derive the reddening consistently for each star, which we use (1) to measure the excess emission above the photosphere with a new indicator of IR excess and (2) to estimate the mass accretion rate ($dot{M}$) from the equivalent width of the H$alpha$ line. Using the observed decay of $dot{M}$ as a constrain to fix the initial conditions and the viscosity parameter of viscous evolutionary models, we use approximate Bayesian modeling to infer the dust properties that produce the observed decrease of the IR excess with age, in the range between 4.5 and $24,mu$m. We calculate an extensive grid of irradiated disk models with a two-layered wall to emulate a curved dust inner edge and obtain the vertical structure consistent with the surface density predicted by viscous evolution. We find that the median dust depletion in the disk upper layers is $epsilon sim 3 times 10^{-3}$ at 1.5 Myr, consistent with previous studies, and it decreases to $epsilon sim 3 times 10^{-4}$ by 7.5 Myr. We include photoevaporation in a simple model of the disk evolution and find that a photoevaporative wind mass-loss rate of $sim 1 -3 times 10 ^{-9} , M_{odot}yr^{-1}$ agrees with the decrease of the disk fraction with age reasonably well. The models show the inward evolution of the H$_2$O and CO snowlines.
Based on the interstellar CO/H2 ratio, carbon monoxide-based censuses of protoplanetary disks in Lupus, sigma Orionis, and Chamaeleon I found no disks more massive than the minimum-mass solar nebula, which is inconsistent with the existence of exoplanets more massive than Jupiter. Observations and models are converging on the idea that ionization-driven chemistry depletes carbon monoxide in T-Tauri disks. Yet the extent of CO depletion depends on the incident flux of ionizing radiation, and some T-Tauri stars may have winds strong enough to shield their disks from cosmic rays. There is also a range of X-ray luminosities possible for a given stellar mass. Here we use a suite of chemical models, each with a different incident X-ray or cosmic-ray flux, to assess whether CO depletion is a typical outcome for T-Tauri disks. We find that CO dissociation in the outer disk is a robust result for realistic ionization rates, with abundance reductions between 70% and 99.99% over 2 Myr of evolution. Furthermore, after the initial dissociation epoch, the inner disk shows some recovery of the CO abundance from CO2 dissociation. In highly ionized disks, CO recovery in the inner disk combined with depletion in the outer disk creates a centrally peaked CO abundance distribution. The emitting area in rare CO isotopologues may be an indirect ionization indicator: in a cluster of disks with similar ages, those with the most compact CO isotopologue emission see the highest ionization rates.
CO is commonly used as a tracer of the total gas mass in both the interstellar medium and in protoplanetary disks. Recently there has been much debate about the utility of CO as a mass tracer in disks. Observations of CO in protoplanetary disks reveal a range of CO abundances, with measurements of low CO to dust mass ratios in numerous systems. One possibility is that carbon is removed from CO via chemistry. However, the full range of physical conditions conducive to this chemical reprocessing is not well understood. We perform a systematic survey of the time dependent chemistry in protoplanetary disks for 198 models with a range of physical conditions. We varying dust grain size distribution, temperature, comic ray and X-ray ionization rate, disk mass, and initial water abundance, detailing what physical conditions are necessary to activate the various CO depletion mechanisms in the warm molecular layer. We focus our analysis on the warm molecular layer in two regions: the outer disk (100 au) well outside the CO snowline and the inner disk (19 au) just inside the midplane CO snow line. After 1 Myr, we find that the majority of models have a CO abundance relative to H$_2$ less than $10^{-4}$ in the outer disk, while an abundance less than $10^{-5}$ requires the presence of cosmic rays. Inside the CO snow line, significant depletion of CO only occurs in models with a high cosmic ray rate. If cosmic rays are not present in young disks it is difficult to chemically remove carbon from CO. Additionally, removing water prior to CO depletion impedes the chemical processing of CO. Chemical processing alone cannot explain current observations of low CO abundances. Other mechanisms must also be involved.
CO is thought to be the main reservoir of volatile carbon in protoplanetary disks, and thus the primary initial source of carbon in the atmospheres of forming giant planets. However, recent observations of protoplanetary disks point towards low volatile carbon abundances in many systems, including at radii interior to the CO snowline. One potential explanation is that gas phase carbon is chemically reprocessed into less volatile species, which are frozen on dust grain surfaces as ice. This mechanism has the potential to change the primordial C/H ratio in the gas. However, current observations primarily probe the upper layers of the disk. It is not clear if the low volatile carbon abundances extend to the midplane, where planets form. We have run a grid of 198 chemical models, exploring how the chemical reprocessing of CO depends on disk mass, dust grain size distribution, temperature, cosmic ray and X-ray ionization rate, and initial water abundance. Building on our previous work focusing on the warm molecular layer, here we analyze the results for our grid of models in the disk midplane at 12 au. We find that either an ISM level cosmic ray ionization rate or the presence of UV photons due to a low dust surface density are needed to chemically reduce the midplane CO gas abundance by at least an order of magnitude within 1 Myr. In the majority of our models CO does not undergo substantial reprocessing by in situ chemistry and there is little change in the gas phase C/H and C/O ratios over the lifetime of the typical disk. However, in the small sub-set of disks where the disk midplane is subject to a source of ionization or photolysis, the gas phase C/O ratio increases by up to nearly 9 orders of magnitude due to conversion of CO into volatile hydrocarbons.
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