No Arabic abstract
We present ALMA observations of the 0.88 millimeter dust continuum, 13CO, and C18O J=3-2 line emission of the circumbinary disk HD142527 at a spatial resolution of about 0.25. This system is characterized by a large central cavity of roughly 120 AU in radius, and asymmetric dust and gas emission. By comparing the observations with theoretical models, we find that the azimuthal variations in gas and dust density reach a contrast of 54 for dust grains and 3.75 for CO molecules, with an extreme gas-to-dust ratio of 1.7 on the dust crescent. We point out that caution is required in interpreting continuum subtracted maps of the line emission as this process might result in removing a large fraction of the line emission. Radially, we find that both the gas and dust surface densities can be described by Gaussians, centered at the same disk radius, and with gas profiles wider than for the dust. These results strongly support a scenario in which millimeter dust grains are radially and azimuthally trapped toward the center of a gas pressure bump. Finally, our observations reveal a compact source of continuum and CO emission inside the dust depleted cavity at about 50 AU from the primary star. The kinematics of the CO emission from this region is different from that expected from material in Keplerian rotation around the binary system, and might instead trace a compact disk around a third companion. Higher angular resolution observations are required to investigate the nature of this source.
With the uniquely high contrast within 0.1 (Delta mag(L) = 5-6.5 magnitudes) available using Sparse Aperture Masking (SAM) with NACO at VLT, we detected asymmetry in the flux from the Herbig Fe star HD 142527 with a barycenter emission situated at a projected separation of 88+/-5 mas (12.8+/-1.5 AU at 145 pc) and flux ratios in H, K, and L of 0.016+/-0.007, 0.012+/-0.008, 0.0086+/-0.0011 respectively (3-sigma errors) relative to the primary star and disk. After extensive closure-phase modeling, we interpret this detection as a close-in, low-mass stellar companion with an estimated mass of ~0.1-0.4 M_Sun. HD 142527 has a complex disk structure, with an inner gap imaged in both the near and mid-IR as well as a spiral feature in the outer disk in the near-IR. This newly detected low-mass stellar companion may provide a critical explanation of the observed disk structure.
With an emphasis on improving the fidelity even in super-resolution regimes, new imaging techniques have been intensively developed over the last several years, which may provide substantial improvements to the interferometric observation of protoplanetary disks. In this study, sparse modeling (SpM) is applied for the first time to observational data sets taken by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). The two data sets used in this study were taken independently using different array configurations at Band 7 (330 GHz), targeting the protoplanetary disk around HD 142527; one in the shorter-baseline array configuration (~ 430 m), and the other in the longer-baseline array configuration (~ 1570 m). The image resolutions reconstructed from the two data sets are different by a factor of ~ 3. We confirm that the previously known disk structures appear on the images produced by both SpM and CLEAN at the standard beam size. The image reconstructed from the shorter-baseline data using the SpM matches that obtained with the longer-baseline data using CLEAN, achieving a super-resolution image from which a structure finer than the beam size can be reproduced. Our results demonstrate that on-going intensive development in the SpM imaging technique is beneficial to imaging with ALMA.
We present ALMA observations of the $98.5~mathrm{GHz}$ dust continuum and the $mathrm{^{13}CO}~J = 1 - 0$ and $mathrm{C^{18}O}~J = 1 - 0$ line emissions of the protoplanetary disk associated with HD~142527. The $98.5~mathrm{GHz}$ continuum shows a strong azimuthal-asymmetric distribution similar to that of the previously reported $336~mathrm{GHz}$ continuum, with a peak emission in dust concentrated region in the north. The disk is optically thin in both the $98.5~mathrm{GHz}$ dust continuum and the $mathrm{C^{18}O}~J = 1 - 0$ emissions. We derive the distributions of gas and dust surface densities, $Sigma_mathrm{g}$ and $Sigma_mathrm{d}$, and the dust spectral opacity index, $beta$, in the disk from ALMA Band 3 and Band 7 data. In the analyses, we assume the local thermodynamic equilibrium and the disk temperature to be equal to the peak brightness temperature of $mathrm{^{13}CO}~J = 3 - 2$ with a continuum emission. The gas-to-dust ratio, $mathrm{G/D}$, varies azimuthally with a relation $mathrm{G/D} propto Sigma_mathrm{d}^{-0.53}$, and $beta$ is derived to be $approx 1$ and $approx 1.7$ in the northern and southern regions of the disk, respectively. These results are consistent with the accumulation of larger dust grains in a higher pressure region. In addition, our results show that the peak $Sigma_mathrm{d}$ is located ahead of the peak $Sigma_mathrm{g}$. If the latter corresponds to a vortex of high gas pressure, the results indicate that the dust is trapped ahead of the vortex, as predicted by some theoretical studies.
We study the $3~mu$m scattering feature of water ice detected in the outer disk of HD 142527 by performing radiative transfer simulations. We show that an ice mass abundance at the outer disk surface of HD 142527 is much lower than estimated in a previous study. It is even lower than inferred from far-infrared ice observations, implying ice disruption at the disk surface. Next, we demonstrate that a polarization fraction of disk-scattered light varies across the ice-band wavelengths depending on ice grain properties; hence, polarimetric spectra would be another tool for characterizing water-ice properties. Finally, we argue that the observed reddish disk-scattered light is due to grains with a few microns in size. To explain the presence of such grains at the disk surface, we need a mechanism that can efficiently oppose dust settling. If we assume turbulent mixing, our estimate requires $alphagtrsim2times10^{-3}$, where $alpha$ is a non-dimensional parameter describing the vertical diffusion coefficient of grains. Future observations probing gas kinematics would be helpful to elucidate vertical grain dynamics in the outer disk of HD 142527.
In view of both the size of its gap and the previously reported asymmetries and near-infrared spiral arms, the transition disk of the Herbig Fe star HD 142527 constitutes a remarkable case study. This paper focuses on the morphology of the outer disk through ALMA observations of $^{12}$CO J=2-1, $^{12}$CO J=3-2 and $^{13}$CO J=2-1. Both $^{12}$CO J=2-1 and $^{12}$CO J=3-2 show spiral features of different sizes. The innermost spiral arm (S1) is a radio counterpart of the first near-infrared spiral observed by Fukagawa et al. (2006), but it is shifted radially outward. However, the most conspicuous CO spiral arm (S2) lies at the outskirts of the disk and had not been detected before. It corresponds to a cold density structure, with both brightness and excitation temperatures of order 13$pm$2 K and conspicuous in the $^{12}$CO J=2-1 peak-intensity map, but faint in $^{12}$CO J=3-2. There is also a faint counterarm (S3), point-symmetrical of S2 with respect to the star. These three spirals are modelled separately with two different formulae that approximate the loci of density maxima in acoustic waves due to embedded planets. S1 could be fit relatively well with these formulae, compared to S2 and S3. Alternative scenarios such as gravitational instability or external tidal interaction are discussed. The impact of channelization on spectrally and spatially resolved peak intensity maps is also briefly addressed.