The evolution of protoplanetary disks in T Tauri binary systems

Doppelsterne gehören zu den am häufigsten gebildeten Objekten im Sternentstehungsprozess. Dennoch ist der Einfluss von stellaren Begleitern auf die Entwicklung zirkumstellarer Scheiben, dem Geburtsort der Planeten, bisher wenig verstanden. Die vorliegende Arbeit beschreibt und diskutiert Nahinfrarotbeobachtungen von 52 stellaren Vielfachsystemen mit projizierten Abständen von 25 bis 1000 Astronomischen Einheiten (AE) in den Sternentstehungsregionen des Orion Nebula Cluster und Chamaeleon I. Damit handelt es sich um die größten homogenen Studien protoplanetarer Scheiben in T Tauri-Doppelsternen in diesen beiden Regionen und um eine der umfangreichsten Untersuchungen dieser Art bisher. Die aufgenommenen Beobachtungsdaten erlauben die Bestimmung von individuellen stellaren (z.B. Effektivtemperatur, Leuchtkraft, Alter, Masse) und Systemparametern (Abstand der Komponenten, Massenverhältnis). Zusätzlich dient die Detektion von Brackett-gamma-Emission als Anzeichen für aktive Akkretion während zirkumstellarer Staub in der inneren Scheibe mittels Nahinfrarotfarbexzess nachgewiesen wird. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass der Anteil an Doppelsternkomponenten mit intakter Akkretionsscheibe signifikant geringer ist als der von Einzelsternen vergleichbarer Masse in beiden Regionen. In engen Systemen mit weniger als 100 AE projiziertem Abstand ist die Akkretionsscheibenhäufigkeit auf etwa die Hälfte des Einzelsternwertes reduziert. Heißer Staub in der inneren Scheibe ist in engen Doppelsystemen 100 AE identisch zu der von Einzelsternen. Die gemessenen Massenakkretionsraten in Doppelsternkomponenten erweisen sich als ununterscheidbar von denen in Einzel- und Doppelsystemen anderer Sternentstehungsregionen. Die gesammelten Daten lassen folgende Schlüsse zu: (a) Die Komponenten von Doppelsternen enstehen vorrangig gleichzeitig, was gegen Einfang ursprünglich isolierter Komponenten als hauptsächlichen Doppelsternenstehungsmechanismus spricht. (b) Scheiben in Doppelsternen enger als ~100 AE entwickeln sich, und verschwinden, schneller als Einzelsternscheiben. (c) Im Gegensatz zur Scheibenentwicklung in Einzelsternen ist die Lebenszeit einer Scheibe um die masseärmere Komponente eines Doppelsterns kürzer als die um den Primärstern. (d) Während die Lebenszeit einer Scheibe durch ihren äußeren Durchmesser (also indirekt durch den Doppelsternabstand) bestimmt wird, sind die Massenakkretionsraten universell. Dies ist ein Hinweis auf eine Entkopplung der Entwicklung der inneren und äußeren Scheibe. (e) Die Parallelen in der Häufigkeit von Scheiben um Komponenten von Doppelsternen und der Detektion von Planeten in vergleichbaren Systemen legt einen schnellen Planetenenstehungsprozess für massereiche (>1 M_Jup) Gasplaneten nahe (z.B. "disk fragmentation") und einen langsameren Prozess (z.B. "core accretion") für masseärmere Planeten.Binary stars are among the most common outcome of star formation. However, many details remain to be explored of how binarity influences the evolution of primordial circumstellar disks, the birthplaces of planets. Tidal interactions and irradiation can change disk geometries and lifetimes, dust properties, and thus the conditions for planet formation. This thesis presents high-spatial resolution near-infrared photometric and spectroscopic observations of 52 visual multiple stars with projected separations of 25--1000 AU in the Orion Nebula Cluster and Chamaeleon I star-forming regions. It represents the largest coherent study of protoplanetary disks around the individual components of T Tauri binary stars in the two regions, and is among the largest of its kind in nearby star-forming regions to date. The data are used to infer individual stellar (e.g. effective temperature, luminosity, age, mass) and binary parameters (separation, component mass ratio). These are brought into context with disk parameters of each component: ongoing accretion is inferred from the strength of Brackett-gamma emission and the existence of hot dust at the inner rim of the circumstellar disk is measured from near-IR excess emission. The new results show a significant reduction of the frequency of accretion disks around binary components compared to single stars in the same regions. The effect is strongest in close binaries with <100 AU projected separation where the frequency of accretors among the binary components is less than 1/2 of the single star accretor fraction. While these close systems also show a mild reduction of targets with hot circumstellar dust, wider binaries have a dust disk fraction comparable to single stars. The derived mass accretion rates were measured to not depend on the fact that stars are accompanied by binary companions at separations of ~100-1000 AU. The new results are put into context with findings from the fields of star formation, disk evolution, and planet formation to derive the following conclusions: (a) Binary components form simultaneously. Capture is not the major binary formation process. (b) Disk evolution is accelerated in binary stars of separations <100 AU compared to single stars of the same mass. (c) Opposite to single star disk evolution, the disk around the less massive component has on average a shorter lifetime than the more massive component's disk. (d) While the lifetime of a disk depends on the diameter of a disk, mass accretion rates are independent of a disk's size and lifetime. A possible reason is a decoupling of inner and outer disk properties. (e) The correlation of disk and planet statistics around binary components supports a rapid formation of gas planets with masses greater than 1 Jupiter mass (through e.g. disk fragmentation) and a slower process (e.g. core accretion) for lower-mass planets

High signal-to-noise spectral characterization of the planetary-mass object HD 106906 b

We spectroscopically characterize the atmosphere of HD 106906b, a young low-mass companion near the deuterium burning limit. The wide separation from its host star of 7.1" makes it an ideal candidate for high S/N and high-resolution spectroscopy. We aim to derive new constraints on the spectral type, effective temperature, and luminosity of HD106906b and also to provide a high S/N template spectrum for future characterization of extrasolar planets. We obtained 1.1-2.5 $\mu$m integral field spectroscopy with the VLT/SINFONI instrument with a spectral resolution of R~2000-4000. New estimates of the parameters of HD 106906b are derived by analyzing spectral features, comparing the extracted spectra to spectral catalogs of other low-mass objects, and fitting with theoretical isochrones. We identify several spectral absorption lines that are consistent with a low mass for HD 106906b. We derive a new spectral type of L1.5$\pm$1.0, one subclass earlier than previous estimates. Through comparison with other young low-mass objects, this translates to a luminosity of log($L/L_\odot$)=$-3.65\pm0.08$ and an effective temperature of Teff=$1820\pm240$ K. Our new mass estimates range between $M=11.9^{+1.7}_{-0.8} M_{\rm Jup}$ (hot start) and $M=14.0^{+0.2}_{-0.5} M_{\rm Jup}$ (cold start). These limits take into account a possibly finite formation time, i.e., HD 106906b is allowed to be 0--3 Myr younger than its host star. We exclude accretion onto HD 106906b at rates $\dot{M}>4.8\times10^{-10} M_{\rm Jup}$yr$^{-1}$ based on the fact that we observe no hydrogen (Paschen-$\beta$, Brackett-$\gamma$) emission. This is indicative of little or no circumplanetary gas. With our new observations, HD 106906b is the planetary-mass object with one of the highest S/N spectra yet. We make the spectrum available for future comparison with data from existing and next-generation (e.g., ELT and JWST) spectrographs.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures. Accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics. Fully reduced spectra will be made available for download on CD

Brown dwarf disks with Herschel: linking far-infrared and (sub)-mm fluxes

AN would like to acknowledge funding from Science Foundation Ireland (Grant 13/ERC/I2907). AS acknowledges support from STFC grant ST/M001296/1. This work was partly supported by the Italian Ministero dell’Istruzione, Università e Ricerca through the grant Progetti Premiali 2012 – iALMA (CUP C52I13000140001). Our research was also supported by NSERC grants to RJ.Brown dwarf disks are excellent laboratories to test our understanding of disk physics in an extreme parameter regime. In this paper we investigate a sample of 29 well-characterized brown dwarfs and very low-mass stars, for which Herschel far-infrared fluxes and (sub)-mm fluxes are available. We measured new Herschel/PACS fluxes for 11 objects and complement these with (sub)-mm data and Herschel fluxes from the literature. We analyze their spectral energy distributions in comparison with results from radiative transfer modeling. Fluxes in the far-infrared are strongly affected by the shape and temperature of the disk (and hence stellar luminosity), whereas the (sub)-mm fluxes mostly depend on disk mass. Nevertheless, there is a clear correlation between far-infrared and (sub)-mm fluxes. We argue that the link results from the combination of the stellar mass-luminosity relation and a scaling between disk mass and stellar mass. We find strong evidence of dust settling to the disk midplane. The spectral slopes between near- and far-infrared are mostly between −0.5 and −1.2 in our sample, which is comparable to more massive T Tauri stars; this may imply that the disk shapes are similar as well, although highly flared disks are rare among brown dwarfs. We find that dust temperatures in the range of 7−15 K, calculated with T ≈ 25 (L/L⊙)0.25 K, are appropriate for deriving disk masses from (sub)-mm fluxes for these low luminosity objects. About half of our sample hosts disks with at least one Jupiter mass, confirming that many brown dwarfs harbor sufficient material for the formation of Earth-mass planets in their midst.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Protoplanetary disk evolution and stellar parameters of T Tauri binaries in Chamaeleon I

This study aims to determine the impact of stellar binary companions on the lifetime and evolution of circumstellar disks in the Chamaeleon I (Cha I) star-forming region by measuring the frequency and strength of accretion and circumstellar dust signatures around the individual components of T Tauri binary stars. We used high-angular resolution adaptive optics JHKL'-band photometry and 1.5-2.5mu spectroscopy of 19 visual binary and 7 triple stars in Cha I - including one newly discovered tertiary component - with separations between ~25 and ~1000au. The data allowed us to infer stellar component masses and ages and, from the detection of near-infrared excess emission and the strength of Brackett-gamma emission, the presence of ongoing accretion and hot circumstellar dust of the individual stellar component of each binary. Of all the stellar components in close binaries with separations of 25-100au, 10(+15-5)% show signs of accretion. This is less than half of the accretor fraction found in wider binaries, which itself appears significantly reduced (~44%) compared with previous measurements of single stars in Cha I. Hot dust was found around 50(+30-15)% of the target components, a value that is indistinguishable from that of Cha I single stars. Only the closest binaries (<25au) were inferred to have a significantly reduced fraction (<~25%) of components that harbor hot dust. Accretors were exclusively found in binary systems with unequal component masses M_secondary/M_primary < 0.8, implying that the detected accelerated disk dispersal is a function of mass-ratio. This agrees with the finding that only one accreting secondary star was found, which is also the weakest accretor in the sample. The results imply that disk dispersal is more accelerated the stronger the dynamical disk truncation, i.e., the smaller the inferred radius of the disk. (abridged)Comment: Accepted for publication in A&A. 25 pages, 20 figure

Atmospheric Retrieval of L Dwarfs: Benchmarking Results and Characterizing the Young Planetary Mass Companion HD 106906 b in the Near-infrared

© 2023. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY), https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0We present model constraints on the atmospheric structure of HD 106906 b, a planetary-mass companion orbiting at a ∼700 au projected separation around a 15 Myr old stellar binary, using the APOLLO retrieval code on spectral data spanning 1.1–2.5 μm. C/O ratios can provide evidence for companion formation pathways, as such pathways are ambiguous both at wide separations and at star-to-companion mass ratios in the overlap between the distributions of planets and brown dwarfs. We benchmark our code against an existing retrieval of the field L dwarf 2MASSW J2224–0158, returning a C/O ratio consistent with previous fits to the same JHK s data, but disagreeing in the thermal structure, cloud properties, and atmospheric scale height. For HD 106906 b, we retrieve C/O =0.53−0.25+0.15 , consistent with the C/O ratios expected for HD 106906's stellar association and therefore consistent with a stellar-like formation for the companion. We find abundances of H2O and CO near chemical equilibrium values for a solar metallicity but a surface gravity lower than expected, as well as a thermal profile with sharp transitions in the temperature gradient. Despite high signal-to-noise ratio and spectral resolution, more accurate constraints necessitate data across a broader wavelength range. This work serves as preparation for subsequent retrievals in the era of JWST, as JWST's spectral range provides a promising opportunity to resolve difficulties in fitting low-gravity L dwarfs and also underscores the need for simultaneous comparative retrievals on L-dwarf companions with multiple retrieval codes.Peer reviewe

Discovery of 9 New Companions to Nearby Young M Stars with the Altair AO System

We present results of a high-resolution, near-infrared survey of 41 nearby, young (<~300 Myr) M0-M5.0 dwarfs using the Altair natural guide star adaptive optics system at the Gemini North telescope. Twelve of the objects appear to be binaries, 7 of which are reported here for the first time. One triple system was discovered. Statistical properties are studied and compared with earlier (F to K) and later (>= M6 very low-mass, VLM) populations. We find that the separation distribution of the binaries in this sample peaks at 13+14-9 AU, which is consistent with previous measurements of early-M binaries. Hence, early-M binaries seem to occur in--on average--tighter systems than G binaries. At the same time they are significantly wider than field VLM binary stars. The distribution of mass ratios q of primary and secondary stars was found to show an intermediate distribution between the strongly q-->1 peaked distribution of field VLM systems and the almost flat distribution of earlier-type stars. Consequently, we show evidence for relatively young, early-M binaries representing a transition between the well known earlier star distributions and the recently examined field VLM population characteristics. Despite the fact that this survey was dedicated to the search for faint brown dwarf and planetary mass companions, all planetary mass candidates were background objects. We exclude the existence of physical companions with masses greater than 10 Jupiter masses (M_Jup) at separations of >~40 AU and masses greater than 24 M_Jup for separations >~10 AU around 37 of the 41 observed objects.Comment: To appear in the January 1, 2007 issue of the Astrophysical Journal, 12 pages, 13 figures. Minor typographical and grammatical changes. Wrong round off in binary fraction correcte