No Arabic abstract
The volatile composition of a planet is determined by the inventory of gas and ice in the parent disk. The volatile chemistry in the disk is expected to evolve over time, though this evolution is poorly constrained observationally. We present ALMA observations of C18O, C2H, and the isotopologues H13CN, HC15N, and DCN towards five Class 0/I disk candidates. Combined with a sample of fourteen Class II disks presented in Bergner et al. (2019b), this data set offers a view of volatile chemical evolution over the disk lifetime. Our estimates of C18O abundances are consistent with a rapid depletion of CO in the first ~0.5-1 Myr of the disk lifetime. We do not see evidence that C2H and HCN formation are enhanced by CO depletion, possibly because the gas is already quite under-abundant in CO. Further CO depletion may actually hinder their production by limiting the gas-phase carbon supply. The embedded sources show several chemical differences compared to the Class II stage, which seem to arise from shielding of radiation by the envelope (impacting C2H formation and HC15N fractionation) and sublimation of ices from infalling material (impacting HCN and C18O abundances). Such chemical differences between Class 0/I and Class II sources may affect the volatile composition of planet-forming material at different stages in the disk lifetime.
We performed very deep searches for 2 ground-state water transitions in 13 protoplanetary disks with the HIFI instrument on-board the Herschel Space Observatory, with integration times up to 12 hours per line. Two other water transitions that sample warmer gas were also searched for with shallower integrations. The detection rate is low, and the upper limits provided by the observations are generally much lower than predictions of thermo-chemical models with canonical inputs. One ground-state transition is newly detected in the stacked spectrum of AA Tau, DM Tau, LkCa 15, and MWC 480. We run a grid of models to show that the abundance of gas-phase oxygen needs to be reduced by a factor of at least ~100 to be consistent with the observational upper limits (and positive detections) if a dust-to-gas mass ratio of 0.01 were to be assumed. As a continuation of previous ideas, we propose that the underlying reason for the depletion of oxygen (hence the low detection rate) is the freeze-out of volatiles such as water and CO onto dust grains followed by grain growth and settling/migration, which permanently removes these gas-phase molecules from the emissive upper layers of the outer disk. Such depletion of volatiles is likely ubiquitous among different disks, though not necessarily to the same degree. The volatiles might be returned back to the gas phase in the inner disk (within about 15 AU), which is consistent with current constraints. Comparison with studies on disk dispersal due to photoevaporation indicates that the timescale for volatile depletion is shorter than that of photoevaporation.
We present three-dimensional simulations of a protoplanetary disk subject to the effect of a nearby (0.3pc distant) supernova, using a time-dependent flow from a one dimensional numerical model of the supernova remnant (SNR), in addition to constant peak ram pressure simulations. Simulations are performed for a variety of disk masses and inclination angles. We find disk mass-loss rates that are typically 1e-7 to 1e-6 Msol/yr (but peak near 1e-5 Msol/yr during the instantaneous stripping phase) and are sustained for around 200 yr. Inclination angle has little effect on the mass loss unless the disk is close to edge-on. Inclined disks also strip asymmetrically with the trailing edge ablating more easily. Since the interaction lasts less than one outer rotation period, there is not enough time for the disk to restore its symmetry, leaving the disk asymmetrical after the flow has passed. Of the low-mass disks considered, only the edge-on disk is able to survive interaction with the SNR (with 50% of its initial mass remaining). At the end of the simulations, disks that survive contain fractional masses of SN material up to 5e-6. This is too low to explain the abundance of short-lived radionuclides in the early solar system, but a larger disk and the inclusion of radiative cooling might allow the disk to capture a higher fraction of SN material.
We present a study of the evolution of the inner few astronomical units of protoplanetary disks around low-mass stars. We consider nearby stellar groups with ages spanning from 1 to 11 Myr, distributed into four age bins. Combining PANSTARSS photometry with spectral types, we derive the reddening consistently for each star, which we use (1) to measure the excess emission above the photosphere with a new indicator of IR excess and (2) to estimate the mass accretion rate ($dot{M}$) from the equivalent width of the H$alpha$ line. Using the observed decay of $dot{M}$ as a constrain to fix the initial conditions and the viscosity parameter of viscous evolutionary models, we use approximate Bayesian modeling to infer the dust properties that produce the observed decrease of the IR excess with age, in the range between 4.5 and $24,mu$m. We calculate an extensive grid of irradiated disk models with a two-layered wall to emulate a curved dust inner edge and obtain the vertical structure consistent with the surface density predicted by viscous evolution. We find that the median dust depletion in the disk upper layers is $epsilon sim 3 times 10^{-3}$ at 1.5 Myr, consistent with previous studies, and it decreases to $epsilon sim 3 times 10^{-4}$ by 7.5 Myr. We include photoevaporation in a simple model of the disk evolution and find that a photoevaporative wind mass-loss rate of $sim 1 -3 times 10 ^{-9} , M_{odot}yr^{-1}$ agrees with the decrease of the disk fraction with age reasonably well. The models show the inward evolution of the H$_2$O and CO snowlines.
We assess the ionising effect of low energy protostellar cosmic rays in protoplanetary disks around a young solar mass star for a wide range of disk parameters. We assume a source of low energy cosmic rays located close to the young star which travel diffusively through the protoplanetary disk. We use observationally inferred values from nearby star-forming regions for the total disk mass and the radial density profile. We investigate the influence of varying the disk mass within the observed scatter for a solar mass star. We find that for a large range of disk masses and density profiles that protoplanetary disks are optically thin to low energy ($sim$3 GeV) cosmic rays. At $Rsim10$au, for all of the disks that we consider ($M_mathrm{disk}=6.0times10^{-4} - 2.4times 10^{-2}M_odot$), the ionisation rate due to low energy stellar cosmic rays is larger than that expected from unmodulated galactic cosmic rays. This is in contrast to our previous results which assumed a much denser disk which may be appropriate for a more embedded source. At $Rsim70$au, the ionisation rate due to stellar cosmic rays dominates in $sim$50% of the disks. These are the less massive disks with less steep density profiles. At this radius there is at least an order of magnitude difference in the ionisation rate between the least and most massive disk that we consider. Our results indicate, for a wide range of disk masses, that low energy stellar cosmic rays provide an important source of ionisation at the disk midplane at large radii ($sim$70au).
The dispersal of protoplanetary disks sets the timescale available for planets to assemble, and thus it is one of the fundamental parameters in theories of planetary formation. Disk dispersal is determined by several properties of the central star, the disk itself, and the surrounding environment. In particular, the metallicity of disks may impact their evolution, even if to date controversial results exist: in low-metallicity clusters disks seem to rapidly disperse, while in the Magellanic Clouds some evidence supports the existence of accreting disks few tens of Myrs old. In this paper we study the dispersal timescale of disks in Dolidze~25, the young cluster in proximity of the Sun with lowest metallicity, with the aim of understanding whether disk evolution is impacted by the low-metallicity of the cluster. We have analyzed Chandra/ACIS-I observations of the cluster and combined the resulting source catalog with existing optical and infrared catalogs of the region. We selected the disk-bearing population and the disk-less population of Dolidze 25. We have derived stellar parameters from isochrones fitted to color-magnitude diagrams. We derived a disk fraction of about 34% and a median age of 1.2 Myrs. By comparing this estimate with existing estimates of the disk fraction of clusters younger than 10 Myrs, our study suggests that the disk fraction of Dolidze 25 is lower than what is expected from its age alone. Even if our results are not conclusive given the intrinsic uncertainty on stellar ages estimated from isochrones fitting to color-magnitude diagrams, we suggest that disk evolution in Dolidze 25 may be impacted by the environment. Given the poor O star population and low stellar density of the cluster, it is more likely that disks dispersal timescale is dictated more by the low metallicity of the cluster rather than external photoevaporation or dynamical encounters.