We present a large, comprehensive survey of rovibrational CO line emission at 4.7 micron from 69 protoplanetary disks, obtained with CRIRES on the ESO Very Large Telescope at the highest available spectral resolving power (R=95,000, v=3.2 km/s). The
CO fundamental band (Delta v=1) is a well-known tracer of warm gas in the inner, planet-forming regions of gas-rich disks around young stars, with the lines formed in the super-heated surfaces of the disks at radii of 0.1-10 AU. Our high spectral resolution data provide new insight into the kinematics of the inner disk gas. Pure double-peaked Keplerian profiles are surprisingly uncommon, beyond the frequency expected based on disk inclination. The majority of the profiles are consistent with emission from a disk plus a slow (few km/s) molecular disk wind. This is evidenced by analysis of different categories as well as an overall tendency for line profiles to have excess blue emission. Weak emission lines from isotopologues and vibrationally excited levels are readily detected. In general, 13CO lines trace cooler gas than the bulk 12CO emission and may arise from further out in the disk, as indicated by narrower line profiles. A high fraction of the sources show vibrationally excited emission (~50%) which is correlated with accretion luminosity, consistent with ultra-violet (UV) fluorescent excitation. Disks around early-type Herbig AeBe stars have narrower lines, on average, than their lower-mass late-type counterparts, due to their increased luminosity. Evolutionary changes in CO are also seen. Removal of the protostellar envelope between class I and II results in the disappearance of the strong absorption lines and CO ice feature characteristic of class I spectra. However, CO emission from class I and II objects is similar in detection frequency, excitation and line shape, indicating that inner disk characteristics are established early.
The processes that form transition disks - disks with depleted inner regions - are not well understood; possible scenarios include planet formation, grain growth and photoevaporation. Disks with spatially resolved dust holes are rare, but, in general
, even less is known about the gas structure. The disk surrounding A0 star Oph IRS 48 in the nearby Rho Ophiuchus region has a 30 AU radius hole previously detected in the 18.7 micron dust continuum and in warm CO in the 5 micron fundamental ro-vibrational band. We present here Submillimeter Array 880 micron continuum imaging resolving an inner hole. However, the radius of the hole in the millimeter dust is only 13 AU, significantly smaller than measured at other wavelengths. The nesting structure of the disk is counter-intuitive, with increasingly large radii rings of emission seen in the millimeter dust (12.9 +1.7/-3.4 AU), 5 micron CO (30 AU) and 18.7 micron dust (peaking at 55 AU). We discuss possible explanations for this structure, including self-shadowing that cools the disk surface layers, photodissociation of CO, and photoevaporation. However, understanding this unusual disk within the stringent multi-wavelength spatial constraints will require further observations to search for cold atomic and molecular gas.
Understanding how disks dissipate is essential to studies of planet formation. However, identifying exactly how dust and gas dissipates is complicated due to difficulty in finding objects clearly in the transition of losing their surrounding material
. We use Spitzer IRS spectra to examine 35 photometrically-selected candidate cold disks (disks with large inner dust holes). The infrared spectra are supplemented with optical spectra to determine stellar and accretion properties and 1.3mm photometry to measure disk masses. Based on detailed SED modeling, we identify 15 new cold disks. The remaining 20 objects have IRS spectra that are consistent with disks without holes, disks that are observed close to edge-on, or stars with background emission. Based on these results, we determine reliable criteria for identifying disks with inner holes from Spitzer photometry and examine criteria already in the literature. Applying these criteria to the c2d surveyed star-forming regions gives a frequency of such objects of at least 4% and most likely of order 12% of the YSO population identified by Spitzer. We also examine the properties of these new cold disks in combination with cold disks from the literature. Hole sizes in this sample are generally smaller than for previously discovered disks and reflect a distribution in better agreement with exoplanet orbit radii. We find correlations between hole size and both disk and stellar masses. Silicate features, including crystalline features, are present in the overwhelming majority of the sample although 10 micron feature strength above the continuum declines for holes with radii larger than ~7 AU. In contrast, PAHs are only detected in 2 out of 15 sources. Only a quarter of the cold disk sample shows no signs of accretion, making it unlikely that photoevaporation is the dominant hole forming process in most cases.
