How small molecules betray dust evolution in planet forming disks

Interstellar matter and star formatio

Chemical conditions of gas in planet-forming disks

Interstellar matter and star formatio

Confirming Bank Liability in Letter of Credit Transactions: Whose Bank Is It Anyway?

Context. The abundance of deuterated molecules in a star-forming region is sensitive to the environment in which they are formed. Deuteration fractions, in other words the ratio of a species containing D to its hydrogenated counterpart, therefore provide a powerful tool for studying the physical and chemical evolution of a star-forming system. While local low-mass star-forming regions show very high deuteration ratios, much lower fractions are observed towards Orion and the Galactic centre. Astration of deuterium has been suggested as a possible cause for low deuteration in the Galactic centre. Aims. We derive methanol deuteration fractions at a number of locations towards the high-mass star-forming region NGC 6334I, located at a mean distance of 1.3 kpc, and discuss how these can shed light on the conditions prevailing during its formation. Methods. We use high sensitivity, high spatial and spectral resolution observations obtained with the Atacama Large Millimeter/ submillimeter Array to study transitions of the less abundant, optically thin, methanol-isotopologues: 13CH3OH, CH318OH, CH2DOH and CH3OD, detected towards NGC 6334I. Assuming local thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE) and excitation temperatures of ~120–330 K, we derive column densities for each of the species and use these to infer CH2DOH/CH3OH and CH3OD/CH3OH fractions. Results. We derive column densities in a range of (0.8–8.3) × 1017 cm−2 for 13CH3OH, (0.13–3.4) × 1017 cm−2 for CH318OH, (0.03–1.63) × 1017 cm−2 for CH2DOH and (0.15–5.5) × 1017 cm−2 for CH3OD in a ~1″ beam. Interestingly, the column densities of CH3OD are consistently higher than those of CH2DOH throughout the region by factors of 2–15. We calculate the CH2DOH to CH3OH and CH3OD to CH3OH ratios for each of the sampled locations in NGC 6334I. These values range from 0.03% to 0.34% for CH2DOH and from 0.27% to 1.07% for CH3OD if we use the 13C isotope of methanol as a standard; using the 18 O-methanol as a standard, decreases the ratios by factors of between two and three. Conclusions. All regions studied in this work show CH2DOH/CH3OH as well as CH2DOH/CH3OD values that are considerably lower than those derived towards low-mass star-forming regions and slightly lower than those derived for the high-mass star-forming regions in Orion and the Galactic centre. The low ratios indicate a grain surface temperature during formation ~30 K, for which the efficiency of the formation of deuterated species is significantly reduced. Therefore, astration of deuterium in the Galactic centre cannot be the explanation for its low deuteration ratio but rather the high temperatures characterising the region

An accelerated Monte Carlo method to solve two-dimensional radiative transfer and molecular excitation. With applications to axisymmetric models of star formation

Wetensch. publicatieFaculteit der Wiskunde en Natuurwetenschappe

The <i>M^.–M</i>_disk Relationship for Herbig Ae/Be Stars: A lifetime problem for disks with low masses?

The accretion of material from protoplanetary disks onto their central stars is a fundamental process in the evolution of these systems and a key diagnostic in constraining the disk lifetime. We analyze the relationship between the stellar accretion rate and the disk mass in 32 intermediate-mass Herbig Ae/Be systems and compare them to their lower-mass counterparts, T Tauri stars. We find that the M ̇-Mdisk relationship for Herbig Ae/Be stars is largely flat at ∼10−7 M☉ yr−1 over 3 orders of magnitude in dust mass. While most of the sample follows the T Tauri trend, a subset of objects with high accretion rates and low dust masses are identified. These outliers (12 out of 32 sources) have an inferred disk lifetime of less than 0.01 Myr and are dominated by objects with low infrared excess. This outlier sample is likely identified in part by the bias in classifying Herbig Ae/Be stars, which requires evidence of accretion that can only be reliably measured above a rate of ∼10−9M☉ yr−1 for these spectral types. If the disk masses are not underestimated and the accretion rates are not overestimated, this implies that these disks may be on the verge of dispersal, which may be due to efficient radial drift of material or outer disk depletion by photoevaporation and/or truncation by companions. This outlier sample likely represents a small subset of the larger young, intermediate-mass stellar population, the majority of which would have already stopped accreting and cleared their disks