No Arabic abstract
Submillimetre images of transition discs are expected to reflect the distribution of the optically thin dust. Former observation of three transition discs LkHa330, SR21N, and HD1353444B at submillimetre wavelengths revealed images which cannot be modelled by a simple axisymmetric disc. We show that a large-scale anticyclonic vortex that develops where the viscosity has a large gradient (e.g., at the edge of the disc dead zone), might be accountable for these large-scale asymmetries. We modelled the long-term evolution of vortices being triggered by the Rossby wave instability. We found that a horseshoe-shaped (azimuthal wavenumber m=1) large-scale vortex forms by coalescing of smaller vortices within 5x10^4 yr, and can survive on the disc life-time (~5x10^6 yr), depending on the magnitude of global viscosity and the thickness of the viscosity gradient. The two-dimensional grid-based global disc simulations with local isothermal approximation and compressible-gas model have been done by the GPU version of hydrodynamic code FARGO (GFARGO). To calculate the dust continuum image at submillimetre wavelengths, we combined our hydrodynamical results with a 3D radiative transfer code. By the striking similarities of the calculated and observed submillimetre images, we suggest that the three transition discs can be modelled by a disc possessing a large-scale vortex formed near the disc dead zone edge. Since the larger dust grains (larger than mm in size) are collected in these vortices, the non-axisymmetric submillimetre images of the above transition discs might be interpreted as active planet and planetesimal forming regions situated far (> 50 AU) from the central stars.
We investigate the nature of the innermost regions of seven circumstellar disks around pre-main-sequence stars. Our object sample contains disks apparently at various stages of their evolution. Both single stars and spatially resolved binaries are considered. In particular, we search for inner disk gaps as proposed for several young stellar objects. When analyzing the underlying dust population in the atmosphere of circumstellar disks, the shape of the 10um feature is investigated. We performed interferometric observations in N band 8-13um with MIDI using baseline lengths of between 54m and 127m. The data analysis is based on radiative-transfer simulations using the Monte Carlo code MC3D by modeling simultaneously the SED, N band spectra, and interferometric visibilities. Correlated and uncorrelated N band spectra are compared to investigate the radial distribution of the dust composition of the disk atmosphere. Spatially resolved mid-infrared emission was detected in all objects. For four objects, the observed N band visibilities and corresponding SEDs could be simultaneously simulated using a parameterized active disk-model. For the more evolved objects of our sample, a purely passive disk-model provides the closest fit. The visibilities inferred for one source allow the presence of an inner disk gap. For another object, one of two visibility measurements could not be simulated by our modeling approach. All uncorrelated spectra reveal the 10um silicate emission feature. In contrast to this, some correlated spectra of the observations of the more evolved objects do not show this feature, indicating a lack of small silicates in the inner versus the outer regions of these disks. We conclude from this observational result that more evolved dust grains can be found in the more central disk regions.
[Abridged] The infrared ro-vibrational emission lines from organic molecules in the inner regions of protoplanetary disks are unique probes of the physical and chemical structure of planet forming regions and the processes that shape them. The non-LTE excitation effects of carbon dioxide (CO2) are studied in a full disk model to evaluate: (i) what the emitting regions of the different CO2 ro-vibrational bands are; (ii) how the CO2 abundance can be best traced using CO2 ro-vibrational lines using future JWST data and; (iii) what the excitation and abundances tell us about the inner disk physics and chemistry. CO2 is a major ice component and its abundance can potentially test models with migrating icy pebbles across the iceline. A full non-LTE CO2 excitation model has been built. The characteristics of the model are tested using non-LTE slab models. Subsequently the CO2 line formation has been modelled using a two-dimensional disk model representative of T-Tauri disks. The CO2 gas that emits in the 15 $mu$m and 4.5 $mu$m regions of the spectrum is not in LTE and arises in the upper layers of disks, pumped by infrared radiation. The v$_2$ 15 $mu$m feature is dominated by optically thick emission for most of the models that fit the observations and increases linearly with source luminosity. Its narrowness compared with that of other molecules stems from a combination of the low rotational excitation temperature (~250 K) and the inherently narrower feature for CO2. The inferred CO2 abundances derived for observed disks are more than two orders of magnitude lower than those in interstellar ices (~10$^5$), similar to earlier LTE disk estimates. Line-to-continuum ratios are low, of order a few %, thus high signal-to-noise (S/N > 300) observations are needed for individual line detections. Prospects of accurate abundance retreival with JWST-MIRI and JWST-NIRSpec are discussed.
Advances in infrared and submillimeter technology have allowed for detailed observations of the molecular content of the planet-forming regions of protoplanetary disks. In particular, disks around solar-type stars now have growing molecular inventories that can be directly compared with both prestellar chemistry and that inferred for the early solar nebula. The data directly address the old question whether the chemistry of planet-forming matter is similar or different and unique relative to the chemistry of dense clouds and protostellar envelopes. The answer to this question may have profound consequences for the structure and composition of planetary systems. The practical challenge is that observations of emission lines from disks do not easily translate into chemical concentrations. Here, we present a two-dimensional radiative transfer model of RNO 90, a classical protoplanetary disk around a solar-mass star, and retrieve the concentrations of dominant molecular carriers of carbon, oxygen and nitrogen in the terrestrial region around 1 AU. We compare our results to the chemical inventory of dense clouds and protostellar envelopes, and argue that inner disk chemistry is, as expected, fundamentally different from prestellar chemistry. We find that the clearest discriminant may be the concentration of CO$_2$, which is extremely low in disks, but one of the most abundant constituents of dense clouds and protostellar envelopes.
Our understanding of protoplanetary disks has greatly improved over the last decade due to a wealth of data from new facilities. Unbiased dust surveys with Spitzer leave us with good constraints on the dust dispersal timescale of small grains in the terrestrial planet forming region. In the ALMA era, this can be confronted for the first time also with evolutionary timescales of mm grains in the outer disk. Gas surveys in the context of the existing multi-wavelength dust surveys will be a key in large statistical studies of disk gas evolution. Unbiased gas surveys are limited to ALMA CO submm surveys, where the quantitative interpretation is still debated. Herschel gas surveys have been largely biased, but [OI] 63 mic surveys and also accretion tracers agree qualitatively with the evolutionary timescale of small grains in the inner disk. Recent advances achieved by means of consistent multi-wavelength studies of gas AND dust in planet forming disks reveal the subtleties of the quantitative interpretation of gas surveys. Observational methods to determine disk masses e.g. from CO submm lines require the knowledge of the dust properties in the disk. Understanding not only the gas evolution, but also its chemical composition will provide crucial input for planet formation models. Kinetic chemical results give profoundly different answers than thermodynamic equilibrium in terms of the C/O ratios as well as the water ice/rock ratios. Again, dust has a key impact on the chemical evolution and composition of the gas. Grain growth for example affects freeze-out processes and strongly increases the cosmic ray induced UV field.
Surveys of protoplanetary disks in star-forming regions of similar age revealed significant variations in average disk mass between some regions. For instance, disks in the Orion Nebular Cluster (ONC) and Corona Australis (CrA) are on average smaller than disks observed in Lupus, Taurus, Chamaeleon I or Ophiuchus. In contrast to previous models that study truncation of disks at a late stage of their evolution, we investigate whether disks may already be born with systematically smaller disk sizes in more massive star-forming regions as a consequence of enhanced ionization rates. Assuming various cosmic-ray ionization rates, we compute the resistivities for ambipolar diffusion and Ohmic dissipation with a chemical network, and perform 2D non-ideal magnetohydrodynamical protostellar collapse simulations. A higher ionization rate leads to stronger magnetic braking, and hence to the formation of smaller disks. Accounting for recent findings that protostars act as forges of cosmic rays and considering only mild attenuation during the collapse phase, we show that a high average cosmic-ray ionization rate in star-forming regions like the ONC or CrA can explain the detection of smaller disks in these regions. Our results show that on average a higher ionization rate leads to the formation of smaller disks. Therefore, smaller disks in regions of similar age can be the consequence of different levels of ionization, and may not exclusively be caused by disk truncation via external photoevaporation. We strongly encourage observations that allow measuring the cosmic-ray ionization degrees in different star-forming regions to test our hypothesis.