We present an observational reconstruction of the radial water vapor content near the surface of the TW Hya transitional protoplanetary disk, and report the first localization of the snow line during this phase of disk evolution. The observations are
comprised of Spitzer-IRS, Herschel-PACS, and Herschel-HIFI archival spectra. The abundance structure is retrieved by fitting a two-dimensional disk model to the available star+disk photometry and all observed H2O lines, using a simple step-function parameterization of the water vapor content near the disk surface. We find that water vapor is abundant (~10^{-4} per H2) in a narrow ring, located at the disk transition radius some 4AU from the central star, but drops rapidly by several orders of magnitude beyond 4.2 AU over a scale length of no more than 0.5AU. The inner disk (0.5-4AU) is also dry, with an upper limit on the vertically averaged water abundance of 10^{-6} per H2. The water vapor peak occurs at a radius significantly more distant than that expected for a passive continuous disk around a 0.6 Msun star, representing a volatile distribution in the TW Hya disk that bears strong similarities to that of the solar system. This is observational evidence for a snow line that moves outward with time in passive disks, with a dry inner disk that results either from gas giant formation or gas dissipation and a significant ice reservoir at large radii. The amount of water present near the snow line is sufficient to potentially catalyze the (further) formation of planetesimals and planets at distances beyond a few AU.
PAHs have been detected toward molecular clouds and some young stars with disks, but have not yet been associated with embedded young stars. We present a sensitive mid-IR spectroscopic survey of PAH features toward a sample of low-mass embedded YSOs.
The aim is to put constraints on the PAH abundance in the embedded phase of star formation using radiative transfer modeling. VLT-ISAAC L-band spectra for 39 sources and Spitzer IRS spectra for 53 sources are presented. Line intensities are compared to recent surveys of Herbig Ae/Be and T Tauri stars. The radiative transfer codes RADMC and RADICAL are used to model the PAH emission from embedded YSOs consisting of a PMS star with a circumstellar disk embedded in an envelope. The dependence of the PAH feature on PAH abundance, stellar radiation field, inclination and the extinction by the surrounding envelope is studied. The 3.3 micron PAH feature is undetected for the majority of the sample (97%), with typical upper limits of 5E-16 W/m^2. Compact 11.2 micron PAH emission is seen directly towards 1 out of the 53 Spitzer Short-High spectra, for a source that is borderline embedded. For all 12 sources with both VLT and Spitzer spectra, no PAH features are detected in either. In total, PAH features are detected toward at most 1 out of 63 (candidate) embedded protostars (<~ 2%), even lower than observed for class II T Tauri stars with disks (11-14%). Assuming typical class I stellar and envelope parameters, the absence of PAHs emission is most likely explained by the absence of emitting carriers through a PAH abundance at least an order of magnitude lower than in molecular clouds but similar to that found in disks. Thus, most PAHs likely enter the protoplanetary disks frozen out in icy layers on dust grains and/or in coagulated form.
