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Register a new userProtoplanetary disks: Sensitivity of the chemical composition to various model parameters
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Protoplanetary disks are challenging objects for astrochemical models due to strong density and temperature gradients and due to the UV photons 2D propagation. In this paper, we have studied the importance of several model parameters on the predicted column densities of observed species. We considered: 1) 2-phase (gas and homogeneous grains) or 3-phase (gas, surface, and bulk of grains) models, 2) several initial compositions, 3) grain growth and dust settling, and 4) several cosmic-ray ionization rates. Our main result is that dust settling is the most crucial parameter. Including this effect renders the computed column densities sensitive to all the other model parameters, except cosmic-ray ionization rate. In fact, we found almost no effect of this parameter for radii larger than 10 au (the minimum radius studied here) except for N2H+. We also compared all our models with all the column densities observed in the protoplanetary disk around DM Tau and were not able to reproduce all the observations despite the studied parameters. N2H+ seems to be the most sensitive species. Its observation in protoplanetary disks at large radius could indicate enough N2 in the gas-phase (inhibited by the 3-phase model, but boosted by the settling) and a low electron abundance (favored by low C and S elemental abundances).
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We study the impact of dust evolution in a protoplanetary disk around a T Tauri star on the disk chemical composition. For the first time we utilize a comprehensive model of dust evolution which includes growth, fragmentation and sedimentation. Specific attention is paid to the influence of grain evolution on the penetration of the UV field in the disk. A chemical model that includes a comprehensive set of gas phase and grain surface chemical reactions is used to simulate the chemical structure of the disk. The main effect of the grain evolution on the disk chemical composition comes from sedimentation, and, to a lesser degree, from the reduction of the total grain surface area. The net effect of grain growth is suppressed by the fragmentation process which maintains a population of small grains, dominating the total grain surface area. We consider three models of dust properties. In model GS both growth and sedimentation are taken into account. In models A5 and A4 all grains are assumed to have the same size (10(-5) cm and 10(-4) cm, respectively) with constant gas-to-dust mass ratio of 100. Like in previous studies, the three-layer pattern (midplane, molecular layer, hot atmosphere) in the disk chemical structure is preserved in all models, but shifted closer to the midplane in models with increased grain size (GS and A4). Unlike other similar studies, we find that in models GS and A4 column densities of most gas-phase species are enhanced by 1-3 orders of magnitude relative to those in a model with pristine dust (A5), while column densities of their surface counterparts are decreased. We show that column densities of certain species, like C2H, HC(2n+1)N (n=0-3), H2O and some other molecules, as well as the C2H2/HCN abundance ratio which are accessible with Herschel and ALMA can be used as observational tracers of early stages of the grain evolution process in protoplanetary disks.
Protoplanetary disks are the target of many chemical studies (both observational and theoretical) as they contain the building material for planets. Their large vertical and radial gradients in density and temperature make them challenging objects for chemical models. In the outer part of these disks, the large densities and low temperatures provide a particular environment where the binding of species onto the dust grains can be very efficient and can affect the gas-phase chemical composition. We attempt to quantify to what extent the vertical abundance profiles and the integrated column densities of molecules predicted by a detailed gas-grain code are affected by the treatment of the molecular hydrogen physisorption at the surface of the grains. We performed three different models using the Nautilus gas-grain code. One model uses a H2 binding energy on the surface of water (440 K) and produces strong sticking of H2. Another model uses a small binding energy of 23 K (as if there were already a monolayer of H2), and the sticking of H$_2$ is almost negligible. Finally, the remaining model is an intermediate solution known as the encounter desorption mechanism. We show that the efficiency of molecular hydrogen binding (and thus its abundance at the surface of the grains) can have a quantitative effect on the predicted column densities in the gas phase of major species such as CO, CS, CN, and HCN.
We study details of the UV radiation transfer in a protoplanetary disk, paying attention to the influence of dust growth and sedimentation on the disk density and temperature. Also, we show how the dust evolution affects photoreaction rates of key molecules, like CN and CS.
Methods. We use the recently developed disk code ProDiMo to calculate the physico-chemical structure of protoplanetary disks and apply the Monte-Carlo line radiative transfer code RATRAN to predict observable line profiles and fluxes. We consider a series of Herbig Ae type disk models ranging from 10^-6 M_Sun to 2.2 10^-2 M_Sun (between 0.5 and 700 AU) to discuss the dependency of the line fluxes and ratios on disk mass for otherwise fixed disk parameters. Results. We find the [CII] 157.7 mum line to originate in LTE from the surface layers of the disk, where Tg > Td . The total emission is dominated by surface area and hence depends strongly on disk outer radius. The [OI] lines can be very bright (> 10^-16 W/m^2) and form in slightly deeper and closer regions under non-LTE conditions. The high-excitation [OI] 145.5 mum line, which has a larger critical density, decreases more rapidly with disk mass than the 63.2 mum line. Therefore, the [OI] 63.2 mum/145.5 mum ratio is a promising disk mass indicator, especially as it is independent of disk outer radius for Rout > 200 AU. CO is abundant only in deeper layers A_V >~ 0.05. For too low disk masses (M_disk <~10^-4 M_Sun) the dust starts to become transparent, and CO is almost completely photo-dissociated. For masses larger than that the lines are an excellent independent tracer of disk outer radius and can break the outer radius degeneracy in the [OI] 63.2 mum/[CII]157.7 mum line ratio. Conclusions. The far-IR fine-structure lines of [CII] and [OI] observable with Herschel provide a promising tool to measure the disk gas mass, although they are mainly generated in the atomic surface layers. In spatially unresolved observations, none of these lines carry much information about the inner, possibly hot regions < 30 AU.
It is now commonly accepted that globular clusters (GCs) have undergone a complex formation and that they host at least two stellar generations. This is a recent paradigm and is founded on both photometric and spectroscopic evidence. We concentrate on results based on high-resolution spectroscopy and on how we moved from single to multiple stellar populations concept for GCs. We underline that the peculiar chemical composition of GC stars is fundamental in establishing the multiple populations scenario and briefly outline what can be learned from observations. Finally, recent observational results on large samples of stars in different evolutionary phases are discussed.
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