Three-dimensional trapping of neutral atoms in a combined gravito-magnetic potential is reported. Clouds of cold rubidium atoms in different hyperfine states of the ground level were trapped with a lifetime of 4.5 s. Confinement exclusively occurred
as a combination of the static magnetic force and the gravitational force.
Context. Observations at sub-millimeter and mm wavelengths will in the near future be able to resolve the radial dependence of the mm spectral slope in circumstellar disks with a resolution of around a few AU at the distance of the closest star-formi
ng regions. Aims. We aim to constrain physical models of grain growth and fragmentation by a large sample of (sub-)mm observations of disks around pre-main sequence stars in the Taurus-Auriga and Ophiuchus star-forming regions. Methods. State-of-the-art coagulation/fragmentation and disk-structure codes are coupled to produce steady-state grain size distributions and to predict the spectral slopes at (sub-)mm wavelengths. Results. This work presents the first calculations predicting the mm spectral slope based on a physical model of grain growth. Our models can quite naturally reproduce the observed mm-slopes, but a simultaneous match to the observed range of flux levels can only be reached by a reduction of the dust mass by a factor of a few up to about 30 while keeping the gas mass of the disk the same. This dust reduction can either be due to radial drift at a reduced rate or during an earlier evolutionary time (otherwise the predicted fluxes would become too low) or due to efficient conversion of dust into larger, unseen bodies.
We have found a photoevaporated disk in the Orion Nebula that includes a wide binary. HST/ACS observations of the proplyd 124-132 show two point-like sources separated by 0.15, or about 60 AU at the distance of Orion. The two sources have nearly iden
tical I and z magnitudes. We analyze the brightest component, Source N, comparing the observed magnitudes with those predicted using a 1 Myr Baraffe/NEXTGEN isochrone with different accretion luminosities and extinctions. We find that a low mass (simeq 0.04 M_odot) brown dwarf ~1 Myr old with mass accretion rate logdot{M}simeq -10.3, typical for objects of this mass, and about 2 magnitudes of visual extinction provides the best fit to the data. This is the first observation of a circumbinary disk undergoing photoevaporation and, if confirmed by spectroscopic observations, the first direct detection of a wide substellar pair still accreting and enshrouded in its circumbinary disk.
