Volatile snowlines in embedded disks around low-mass protostars

(Abridged*) Models of the young solar nebula assume a hot initial disk with most volatiles are in the gas phase. The question remains whether an actively accreting disk is warm enough to have gas-phase water up to 50 AU radius. No detailed studies have yet been performed on the extent of snowlines in an embedded accreting disk (Stage 0). Quantify the location of gas-phase volatiles in embedded actively accreting disk system. Two-dimensional physical and radiative transfer models have been used to calculate the temperature structure of embedded protostellar systems. Gas and ice abundances of H$_2$O, CO$_2$, and CO are calculated using the density-dependent thermal desorption formulation. The midplane water snowline increases from 3 to 55 AU for accretion rates through the disk onto the star between $10^{-9}$-$10^{-4} M_{odot} {rm yr^{-1}}$. CO$_2$ can remain in the solid phase within the disk for $dot{M} leq 10^{-5} M_{odot} {rm yr^{-1}}$ down to $sim 20$ AU. Most of the CO is in the gas phase within an actively accreting disk independent of disk properties and accretion rate. The predicted optically thin water isotopolog emission is consistent with the detected H$_2^{18}$O emission toward the Stage 0 embedded young stellar objects, originating from both the disk and the warm inner envelope (hot core). An accreting embedded disk can only account for water emission arising from $R < 50$ AU, however, and the extent rapidly decreases for low accretion rates. Thus, the radial extent of the emission can be measured with ALMA observations and compared to this limit. Volatiles sublimate out to 50 AU in young disks and can reset the chemical content inherited from the envelope in periods of high accretion rates. A hot young solar nebula out to 30 AU can only have occurred during the deeply embedded Stage 0, not during the T-Tauri phase of our early solar system.

Gas density drops inside dust cavities of transitional disks around young stars observed with ALMA

Transitional disks with large dust cavities are important laboratories to study planet formation and disk evolution. Cold gas may still be present inside these cavities, but the quantification of this gas is challenging. The gas content is important to constrain the origin of the dust cavity. We use Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) observations of 12CO 6--5 and 690 GHz (Band 9) continuum of five well-studied transitional disks. In addition, we analyze previously published Band 7 observations of a disk in 12CO 3--2 line and 345 GHz continuum. The observations are used to set constraints on the gas and dust surface density profiles, in particular the drop delta-gas of the gas density inside the dust cavity. The physical-chemical modeling code DALI is used to analyze the gas and dust images simultaneously. We model SR21, HD135344B, LkCa15, SR24S and RXJ1615-3255 (Band 9) and J1604-2130 (Band 7). The SED and continuum visibility curve constrain the dust surface density. Subsequently, the same model is used to calculate the 12CO emission, which is compared with the observations through spectra and intensity cuts. The amount of gas inside the cavity is quantified by varying the delta-gas parameter. Model fits to the dust and gas indicate that gas is still present inside the dust cavity for all disks but at a reduced level. The gas surface density drops inside the cavity by at least a factor 10, whereas the dust density drops by at least a factor 1000. Disk masses are comparable with previous estimates from the literature, cavity radii are found to be smaller than in the 345 GHz SubMillimeter Array (SMA) data. The derived gas surface density profiles suggest clearing of the cavity by one or more companions in all cases, trapping the millimeter-sized dust at the edge of the cavity.

Testing protostellar disk formation models with ALMA observations

Abridged: Recent simulations have explored different ways to form accretion disks around low-mass stars. We aim to present observables to differentiate a rotationally supported disk from an infalling rotating envelope toward deeply embedded young stellar objects and infer their masses and sizes. Two 3D magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) formation simulations and 2D semi-analytical model are studied. The dust temperature structure is determined through continuum radiative transfer RADMC3D modelling. A simple temperature dependent CO abundance structure is adopted and synthetic spectrally resolved submm rotational molecular lines up to $J_{rm u} = 10$ are simulated. All models predict similar compact components in continuum if observed at the spatial resolutions of 0.5-1$$ (70-140 AU) typical of the observations to date. A spatial resolution of $sim$14 AU and high dynamic range ($> 1000$) are required to differentiate between RSD and pseudo-disk in the continuum. The peak-position velocity diagrams indicate that the pseudo-disk shows a flatter velocity profile with radius than an RSD. On larger-scales, the CO isotopolog single-dish line profiles are similar and are narrower than the observed line widths of low-$J$ lines, indicating significant turbulence in the large-scale envelopes. However a forming RSD can provide the observed line widths of high-$J$ lines. Thus, either RSDs are common or a higher level of turbulence ($b sim 0.8 {rm km s^{-1}}$ ) is required in the inner envelope compared with the outer part. Multiple spatially and spectrally resolved molecular line observations are needed. The continuum data give a better estimate on disk masses whereas the disk sizes can be estimated from the spatially resolved molecular lines observations. The general observable trends are similar between the 2D semi-analytical models and 3D MHD RSD simulations.

SMA observations of young disks: separating envelope, disk, and stellar masses in class I YSOs

(abbreviated) We aim to determine the masses of the envelopes, disks, and central stars of young stellar objects (YSOs) in the Class I stage. We observed the embedded Class I objects IRS 63 and Elias 29 in the rho Ophiuchi star-forming region with the Submillimeter Array (SMA) at 1.1 mm. IRS 63 and Elias 29 are both clearly detected in the continuum, with peak fluxes of 459 resp. 47 mJy/beam. The continuum emission toward Elias 29 is clearly resolved, whereas IRS 63 is consistent with a point source down to a scale of 3 arcsec (400 AU). The SMA data are combined with single-dish data, and disk masses of 0.055 and >= 0.007 MSun and envelope masses of 0.058 and >= 0.058 MSun are empirically determined for IRS 63 and Elias 29, respectively. The disk+envelope systems are modelled with the axisymmetric radiative-transfer code RADMC, yielding disk and envelope masses that differ from the empirical results by factors of a few. HCO+ J = 3-2 is detected toward both sources, HCN J = 3-2 is not. The HCO+ position-velocity diagrams are indicative of Keplerian rotation. For a fiducial inclination of 30 degrees, we find stellar masses of 0.37 +/- 0.13 and 2.5 +/- 0.6 MSun for IRS 63 and Elias 29, respectively. We conclude that the sensitivity and spatial resolution of the SMA at 1.1 mm allow a good separation of the disks around Class I YSOs from their circumstellar envelopes and environments, and the spectral resolution makes it possible to resolve their dynamical structure and estimate the masses of the central stars. The ratios of the envelope and disk masses are found to be 0.2 and 6 for IRS 63 and Elias 29, respectively. This is lower than the values for Class 0 sources, which have Menv/Mdisk >= 10, suggesting that this ratio is a tracer of the evolutionary stage of a YSO.