No Arabic abstract
We report two-dimensional spectroastrometry of Br gamma emission of TW Hya to study the kinematics of the ionized gas in the star-disk interface region. The spectroastrometry with the integral field spectrograph SINFONI at the Very Large Telescope is sensitive to the positional offset of the line emission down to the physical scale of the stellar diameter (~0.01 AU). The centroid of Br gamma emission is displaced to the north with respect to the central star at the blue side of the emission line, and to the south at the red side. The major axis of the centroid motion is P.A.= -20 degrees, which is nearly equal to the major axis of the protoplanetary disk projected on the sky, previously reported by CO sub millimeter spectroscopy (P.A.= -27 degrees) The line-of-sight motion of the Br gamma emission, in which the northern side of the disk is approaching toward us, is also consistent with the direction of the disk rotation known from the CO observation. The agreement implies that the kinematics of Br gamma emission is accounted for by the ionized gas in the inner edge of the disk. A simple modeling of the astrometry, however, indicates that the accretion inflow similarly well reproduces the centroid displacements of Br gamma, but only if the position angles of the centroid motion and the projected disk ellipse is a chance coincidence. No clear evidence of disk wind is found.
We present a detailed analysis of the spatially and spectrally resolved 12CO J=2-1 and J=3-2 emission lines from the TW Hya circumstellar disk, based on science verification data from the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA). These lines exhibit substantial emission in their high-velocity wings (with projected velocities out to 2.1 km/s, corresponding to intrinsic orbital velocities >20 km/s) that trace molecular gas as close as 2 AU from the central star. However, we are not able to reproduce the intensity of these wings and the general spatio-kinematic pattern of the lines with simple models for the disk structure and kinematics. Using three-dimensional non-local thermodynamic equilibrium molecular excitation and radiative transfer calculations, we construct some alternative models that successfully account for these features by modifying either (1) the temperature structure of the inner disk (inside the dust-depleted disk cavity; r < 4 AU); (2) the intrinsic (Keplerian) disk velocity field; or (3) the distribution of disk inclination angles (a warp). The latter approach is particularly compelling because a representative warped disk model qualitatively reproduces the observed azimuthal modulation of optical light scattered off the disk surface. In any model scenario, the ALMA data clearly require a substantial molecular gas reservoir located inside the region where dust optical depths are known to be substantially diminished in the TW Hya disk, in agreement with previous studies based on infrared spectroscopy. The results from these updated model prescriptions are discussed in terms of their potential physical origins, which might include dynamical perturbations from a low-mass companion with an orbital separation of a few AU.
We report the detection of an excess in dust continuum emission at 233~GHz (1.3~mm in wavelength) in the protoplanetary disk around TW~Hya revealed through high-sensitivity observations at $sim$3~au resolution with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). The sensitivity of the 233~GHz image has been improved by a factor of 3 with regard to that of our previous cycle 3 observations. The overall structure is mostly axisymmetric, and there are apparent gaps at 25 and 41 au as previously reported. The most remarkable new finding is a few au-scale excess emission in the south-west part of the protoplanetary disk. The excess emission is located at 52 au from the disk center and is 1.5 times brighter than the surrounding protoplanetary disk at a significance of 12$sigma$. We performed a visibility fitting to the extracted emission after subtracting the axisymmetric protoplanetary disk emission and found that the inferred size and the total flux density of the excess emission are 4.4$times$1.0~au and 250~$mu$Jy, respectively. The dust mass of the excess emission corresponds to 0.03~$M_oplus$ if a dust temperature of 18~K is assumed. Since the excess emission can also be marginally identified in the Band 7 image at almost the same position, the feature is unlikely to be a background source. The excess emission can be explained by a dust clump accumulated in a small elongated vortex or a massive circumplanetary disk around a Neptune mass forming-planet.
Formaldehyde (H$_2$CO) is an important precursor to organics like methanol (CH$_3$OH). It is important to understand the conditions that produce H$_2$CO and prebiotic molecules during star and planet formation. H$_2$CO possesses both gas-phase and solid-state formation pathways, involving either UV-produced radical precursors or CO ice and cold ($lesssim 20$ K) dust grains. To understand which pathway dominates, gaseous H$_2$COs ortho-to-para ratio (OPR) has been used as a probe, with a value of 3 indicating warm conditions and $<3$ linked to cold formation in the solid-state. We present spatially resolved ALMA observations of multiple ortho- and para-H$_2$CO transitions in the TW Hya protoplanetary disk to test H$_2$CO formation theories during planet formation. We find disk-averaged rotational temperatures and column densities of $33pm2$ K, ($1.1pm0.1)times10^{12}$ cm$^{-2}$ and $25pm2$ K, $(4.4pm0.3)times10^{11}$ cm$^{-2}$ for ortho- and para-H$_2$CO, respectively, and an OPR of $2.49pm0.23$. A radially resolved analysis shows that the observed H$_2$CO emits mostly at rotational temperatures of 30-40 K, corresponding to a layer with $z/Rge0.25$. The OPR is consistent with 3 within 60 au, the extent of the pebble disk, and decreases beyond 60 au to $2.0pm0.5$. The latter corresponds to a spin temperature of 12 K, well below the rotational temperature. The combination of relatively uniform emitting conditions, a radial gradient in the OPR, and recent laboratory experiments and theory on OPR ratios after sublimation, lead us to speculate that gas-phase formation is responsible for the observed H$_2$CO across the TW Hya disk.
We report the detection of spiral substructure in both the gas velocity and temperature structure of the disk around TW~Hya, suggestive of planet-disk interactions with an unseen planet. Perturbations from Keplerian rotation tracing out a spiral pattern are observed in the SE of the disk, while significant azimuthal perturbations in the gas temperature are seen in the outer disk, outside 90~au, extending the full azimuth of the disk. The deviation in velocity is either $Delta v_{phi} , / , v_{rm kep} sim 0.1$ or $Delta v_{z} , / , v_{rm kep} sim 0.01$ depending on whether the perturbation is in the rotational or vertical direction, while radial perturbations can be ruled out. Deviations in the gas temperature are $pm 4$ K about the azimuthally averaged profile, equivalent to deviations of $Delta T_{rm gas} , / , T_{rm gas} sim 0.05$. Assuming all three structures can be described by an Archimedean spiral, measurements of the pitch angles of both velocity and temperature spirals show a radially decreasing trend for all three, ranging from 9$^{circ}$ at 70 au, dropping to 3$^{circ}$ at 200 au. Such low pitch-angled spirals are not readily explained through the wake of an embedded planet in the location of previously reported at 94 au, but rather require a launching mechanism which results in much more tightly wound spirals. Molecular emission tracing distinct heights in the disk is required to accurately distinguish between spiral launching mechanisms.
We report observations of the cyanide anion, CN, in the disk around TW~Hya covering the $N=1-0$, $N=2-1$ and $N=3-2$ transitions. Using line stacking techniques, 24 hyperfine transitions are detected out of the 30 within the observed frequency ranges. Exploiting the super-spectral resolution from the line stacking method reveals the splitting of hyperfine components previously unresolved by laboratory spectroscopy. All transitions display a similar emission morphology, characterized by an azimuthally symmetric ring, peaking at $approx 45$~au (0.75), and a diffuse outer tail extending out to the disk edge at $approx 200$~au. Excitation analyses assuming local thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE) yield excitation temperatures in excess of the derived kinetic temperatures based on the local line widths for all fine structure groups, suggesting assumptions of LTE are invalid. Using the 0D radiative transfer code RADEX, we demonstrate that such non-LTE effects may be present when the local H$_2$ density drops to $10^{7}~{rm cm^{-3}}$ and below. Comparison with models of TW~Hya find similar densities at elevated regions in the disk, typically $z , / , r gtrsim 0.2$, consistent with model predictions where CN is formed via vibrationally excited H$_2$ in the disk atmospheric layers where UV irradiation is less attenuated.