No Arabic abstract
Ring structures are observed by (sub-)millimeter dust continuum emission in various circumstellar disks from early stages of Class 0 and I to late stage of Class II young stellar objects (YSOs). In this paper, we study one of the possible scenarios of such ring formation in early stage, which is coagulation of dust aggregates. The dust grains grow in an inside-out manner because the growth timescale is roughly proportional to the orbital period. The boundary of the dust evolution can be regarded as the growth front, where the growth time is comparable to the disk age. With radiative transfer calculations based on the dust coagulation model, we find that the growth front can be observed as a ring structure because dust surface density is sharply changed at this position. Furthermore, we confirm that the observed ring positions in the YSOs with an age of $lesssim1$ Myr are consistent with the growth front. The growth front could be important to create the ring structure in particular for early stage of the disk evolution such as Class 0 and I sources.
One of the most important questions in the field of planet formation is how mm-cm sized dust particles overcome the radial drift and fragmentation barriers to form kilometer-sized planetesimals. ALMA observations of protoplanetary disks, in particular transition disks or disks with clear signs of substructures, can provide new constraints on theories of grain growth and planetesimal formation and therefore represent one possibility to progress on this issue. We here present ALMA band 4 (2.1 mm) observations of the transition disk system Sz 91 and combine them with previously obtained band 6 (1.3 mm) and 7 (0.9 mm) observations. Sz 91 with its well defined mm-ring, more extended gas disk, and evidence of smaller dust particles close to the star, is a clear case of dust filtering and the accumulation of mm sized particles in a gas pressure bump. We computed the spectral index (nearly constant at $sim$3.34), optical depth (marginally optically thick), and maximum grain size ($sim,0.61$ mm) in the dust ring from the multi-wavelength ALMA observations and compared the results with recently published simulations of grain growth in disk substructures. Our observational results are in very good agreement with the predictions of models for grain growth in dust rings that include fragmentation and planetesimal formation through the streaming instability.
Tidal interactions between the embedded planets and their surrounding protoplanetary disks are often postulated to produce the observed complex dust substructures, including rings, gaps, and asymmetries. In this Letter, we explore the consequences of dust coagulation on the dust dynamics and ring morphology. Coagulation of dust grains leads to dust size growth which, under typical disk conditions, produces faster radial drifts, potentially threatening the dust ring formation. Utilizing 2D hydrodynamical simulations of protoplanetary disks which include a full treatment of dust coagulation, we find that if the planet does not open a gap quickly enough, the formation of an inner ring is impeded due to dust coagulation and subsequent radial drift. Furthermore, we find that a buildup of sub-mm sized grains often appears in the dust emission at the outer edge of the dust disk.
We report an analysis of the dust disk around DM~Tau, newly observed with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) at 1.3 mm. The ALMA observations with high sensitivity (8.4~$mu$Jy/beam) and high angular resolution (35~mas, 5.1~au) detect two asymmetries on the ring at $rsim$20~au. They could be two vortices in early evolution, the destruction of a large scale vortex, or double continuum emission peaks with different dust sizes. We also found millimeter emissions with $sim$50~$mu$Jy (a lower limit dust mass of 0.3~$M_{rm Moon}$) inside the 3-au ring. To characterize these emissions, we modeled the spectral energy distribution (SED) of DM~Tau using a Monte Carlo radiative transfer code. We found that an additional ring at $r=$ 1~au could explain both the DM~Tau SED and the central point source. The disk midplane temperature at the 1-au ring calculated in our modeling is less than the typical water sublimation temperature of 150~K, prompting the possibility of forming small icy planets there.
The Herbig Ae star HD 169142 is known to have a gaseous disk with a large inner hole, and also a photometrically variable inner dust component in the sub-au region. Following up our previous analysis, we further studied the temporal evolution of inner dust around HD 169142, which may provide information on the evolution from late-stage protoplanetary disks to debris disks. We used near-infrared interferometric observations obtained with VLTI/PIONIER to constrain the dust distribution at three epochs spanning six years. We also studied the photometric variability of HD 169142 using our optical-infrared observations and archival data. Our results indicate that a dust ring at ~0.3 au formed at some time between 2013 and 2018, and then faded (but did not completely disappear) by 2019. The short-term variability resembles that observed in extreme debris disks, and is likely related to short-lived dust of secondary origin, though variable shadowing from the inner ring could be an alternative interpretation. If confirmed, this is the first direct detection of secondary dust production inside a protoplanetary disk.
Planetesimal formation is one of the most important unsolved problems in planet formation theory. In particular, rocky planetesimal formation is difficult because silicate dust grains are easily broken when they collide. Recently, it has been proposed that they can grow as porous aggregates when their monomer radius is smaller than $sim$ 10 nm, which can also avoid the radial drift toward the central star. However, the stability of a layer composed of such porous silicate dust aggregates has not been investigated. Therefore, we investigate the gravitational instability of this dust layer. To evaluate the disk stability, we calculate Toomres stability parameter $Q$, for which we need to evaluate the equilibrium random velocity of dust aggregates. We calculate the equilibrium random velocity considering gravitational scattering and collisions between dust aggregates, drag by mean flow of gas, stirring by gas turbulence, and gravitational scattering by gas density fluctuation due to turbulence. We derive the condition of the gravitational instability using the disk mass, dust-to-gas ratio, turbulent strength, orbital radius, and dust monomer radius. We find that, for the minimum mass solar nebula model at 1 au, the dust layer becomes gravitationally unstable when the turbulent strength $alphalesssim10^{-5}$. If the dust-to-gas ratio is increased twice, the gravitational instability occurs for $alphalesssim10^{-4}$. We also find that the dust layer is more unstable in disks with larger mass, higher dust-to-gas ratio, and weaker turbulent strength, at larger orbital radius, and with a larger monomer radius.