Chemistry and line emission from evolving Herbig Ae disks

Aims: To calculate chemistry and gas temperature of evolving protoplanetary disks with decreasing mass or dust settling, and to explore the sensitivity of gas-phase tracers. Methods: The density and dust temperature profiles for a range of models of flaring and self-shadowed disks around a typical Herbig Ae star are used together with 2-dimensional ultraviolet (UV) radiative transfer to calculate the chemistry and gas temperature. In each model the line profiles and intensities for the fine structure lines of [O I], [C II] and [C I] and the pure rotational lines of CO, CN, HCN and HCO+ are determined. Results: The chemistry shows a strong correlation with disk mass. Molecules that are easily dissociated, like HCN, require high densities and large extinctions before they can become abundant. The products of photodissociation, like CN and C2H, become abundant in models with lower masses. Dust settling mainly affects the gas temperature, and thus high temperature tracers like the O and C+ fine structure lines. The carbon chemistry is found to be very sensitive to the adopted PAH abundance. The line ratios CO/13CO, CO/HCO+ and [O I] 63 um/146 um can be used to distinguish between disks where dust growth and settling takes place, and disks that undergo overall mass loss.Comment: 14 pages, 12 figures. Accepted for publication in A&

Chemistry in evolving protoplanetary disks

Planets form in disks of gas and dust around young stars. Since the gas makes up 99 % of the disk mass, it is critical for our understanding of planet formation to gain direct information from the gas, independently of what can be learned from dust emission. In this thesis, calculations are presented of the chemistry and gas temperature in disks, and the resulting atomic and molecular emission lines are investigated. The main focus of the thesis is on the effects of dust settling on gas-phase emission lines of disks around T-Tauri and Herbig Ae stars. It is found that dust settling has little effect on the overall chemistry and molecular lines; the main effect is a decrease in the gas temperature, which is reflected in atomic fine-structure lines and especially in the [O I] lines. The chemistry, and especially the CO abundance and HCN/CN ratio, is affected more by the total gas mass than by the dust gas ratio in a disk. The models were also applied to the disk around HD 141569A, which is in a transitional stage between a gas-rich Herbig Ae disk and a debris disk. Using chemical models to fit the observed CO rotational lines it is concluded that gas and small dust particles have an approximately interstellar mass ratio, and that gas is still present in the inner hole in the dust distributionUBL - phd migration 201

Modeling the gas-phase chemistry of the transitional disk around HD 141569A

Aims: The chemistry, distribution and mass of the gas in the transitional disk around the 5 Myr old B9.5 V star HD 141569A are constrained. Methods: A quasi 2-dimensional (2D) chemistry code for photon dominated regions (PDR) is used to calculate the chemistry and gas temperatures in the disk. The calculations are performed for several gas distributions, PAH abundances and values of the total gas mass. The resulting CO J=2-1 and J=3-2 emission lines are computed with a 2D radiative transfer code and are compared to observations. Results: The CO abundance is very sensitive to the total disk mass because the disk is in a regime where self-shielding just sets in. The observed CO emission lines are best fit by a power-law gas distribution of 80 M_earth starting at 80 AU from the central star, indicating that there is some gas in the inner hole. Predictions are made for intensities of atomic fine-structure lines. [C I], which is the dominant form of carbon in large parts of the disk, is found to be a good alternative tracer of the gas mass.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figures. Accepted for publication in A&

Evolution of PAHs in protoplanetary disks

Depending on whom you ask, PAHs are either the smallest dust particles or the largest gas-phase molecules in space. Whether referred to as gas or dust, these PAHs can contain up to 20% of the total cosmic carbon abundance and as such also play an important role in the carbon chemistry of protoplanetary disks. The interpretation of PAH bands is often a complex procedure involving not only gas physics to determine their ionization stage and temperature, but also radiative transfer effects that can bury these bands in a strong thermal continuum from a population of larger dust particles. PAHs are most readily seen in the spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of disks around Herbig AeBe stars where they are photoprocessed by the stellar radiation field. Resolved images taken in the PAH bands confirm their origin in the flaring surfaces of circumstellar disks: if the SED is consistent with a flat disk structure (less illuminated), there is little or no evidence of PAH emission. The very low detection rates in the disks around T Tauri stars often require an overall lower abundance of PAHs in these disk surface as compared to that in molecular clouds. In this review, I will adress three aspects of PAHs in protoplanetary disks: (1) Do PAHs form in protoplanetary disks or do they originate from the precursor molecular cloud? (2) Is the presence of PAH features in SEDs a consequence of the disk structure or do PAHs in fact shape the disk structure? (3) How can we use PAHs as tracers of processes in protoplanetary disks?Comment: 13 pages, 3 figures, invited review at the conference "PAHs and the Universe", C. Joblin and A.G.G.M Tielens Eds, EAS Publications Series vol. 46, 201

Warm molecular gas and kinematics in the disc around HD 100546

The disc around the Herbig Ae/Be star HD 100546 is one of the most extensively studied discs in the southern sky. Although there is a wealth of information about its dust content and composition, not much is known about its gas and large scale kinematics. We detect and study the molecular gas in the disc at spatial resolution from 7.7" to 18.9" using the APEX telescope. The lines 12CO J=7-6, J=6-5, J=3-2, 13CO J=3-2 and [C I] 3P2-3P1 are observed, diagnostic of disc temperature, size, chemistry, and kinematics. We use parametric disc models that reproduce the low-J 12CO emission from Herbig~Ae stars and vary the basic disc parameters - temperature, mass and size. Using the molecular excitation and radiative transfer code RATRAN we fit the observed spectral line profiles. Our observations are consistent with more than 0.001 Msun of molecular gas in a disc of approximately 400 AU radius in Keplerian rotation around a 2.5 Msun star, seen at an inclination of 50 degrees. The detected 12CO lines are dominated by gas at 30-70~K. The non-detection of the [C I] line indicates excess ultraviolet emission above that of a B9 type model stellar atmosphere. Asymmetry in the 12CO line emission suggests that one side of the outer disc is colder by 10-20~K than the other, possibly due to a shadow by a warped geometry of the inner disc. Pointing offsets, foreground cloud absorption and asymmetry in the disc extent are excluded scenarios. Efficient heating of the outer disc ensures that low- and high-J 12CO lines are dominated by the outermost disc regions, indicating a 400 AU radius. The 12CO J=6--5 line arises from a disc layer higher above disc midplane, and warmer by 15-20~K than the layer emitting the J=3--2 line. The existing models of discs around Herbig Ae stars, assuming a B9.5 type model stellar atmosphere overproduce the [CI] 3P2--3P1 line intensity from HD 100546 by an order of magnitude.Comment: 9pages, 3figures, Accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysic

Investigating the flyby scenario for the HD 141569 system

HD 141569, a triple star system, has been intensively observed and studied for its massive debris disk. It was rather regarded as a gravitationally bound triple system but recent measurements of the HD 141569A radial velocity seem to invalidate this hypothesis. The flyby scenario has therefore to be investigated to test its compatibility with the observations. We present a study of the flyby scenario for the HD141569 system, by considering 3 variants: a sole flyby, a flyby associated with one planet and a flyby with two planets. We use analytical calculations and perform N-body numerical simulations of the flyby encounter. The binary orbit is found to be almost fixed by the observational constraint on a edge-on plane with respect to the observers. If the binary has had an influence on the disk structure, it should have a passing time at the periapsis between 5000 and 8000 years ago and a distance at periapsis between 600 and 900 AU. The best scenario for reproducing the disk morphology is a flyby with only 1 planet. For a 2 Mj (resp. 8 Mj) planet, its eccentricity must be around 0.2 (resp. below 0.1). In the two cases, its apoapsis is about 130 AU. Although the global disk shape is reasonably well reproduced, some features cannot be explain by the present model and the likehood of the flyby event remains an issue. Dynamically speaking, HD 141569 is still a puzzling system

Warm gas at 50 AU in the disk around Herbig Be star HD 100546

The disk atmosphere is one of the fundamental elements of theoretical models of a protoplanetary disk. However, the direct observation of the warm gas (>> 100 K) at large radius of a disk (>> 10 AU) is challenging, because the line emission from warm gas in a disk is usually dominated by the emission from an inner disk. Our goal is to detect the warm gas in the disk atmosphere well beyond 10 AU from a central star in a nearby disk system of the Herbig Be star HD 100546. We measured the excitation temperature of the vibrational transition of CO at incremental radii of the disk from the central star up to 50 AU, using an adaptive optics system combined with the high-resolution infrared spectrograph CRIRES at the VLT. The observation successfully resolved the line emission with 0".1 angular resolution, which is 10 AU at the distance of HD 100546. Population diagrams were constructed at each location of the disk, and compared with the models calculated taking into account the optical depth effect in LTE condition. The excitation temperature of CO is 400-500 K or higher at 50 AU away from the star, where the blackbody temperature in equilibrium with the stellar radiation drops as low as 90 K. This is unambiguous evidence of a warm disk atmosphere far away from the central star.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, A&A in pres

Photoprocesses in protoplanetary disks

Circumstellar disks are exposed to intense ultraviolet radiation from the young star. In the inner disks, the UV radiation can be enhanced by more than seven orders of magnitude compared with the average interstellar field, resulting in a physical and chemical structure that resembles that of a dense photon-dominated region (PDR). This intense UV field affects the chemistry, the vertical structure of the disk, and the gas temperature, especially in the surface layers of the disk. The parameters which make disks different from traditional PDRs are discussed, including the shape of the UV radiation field, grain growth, the absence of PAHs, the gas/dust ratio and the presence of inner holes. New photorates for selected species, including simple ions, are presented. Also, a summary of available cross sections at Lyman alpha 1216 A is made. Rates are computed for radiation fields with color temperatures ranging from 4000 to 30,000 K, and can be applied to a wide variety of astrophysical regions including exo-planetary atmospheres. The importance of photoprocesses is illustrated for a number of representative disk models, including disk models with grain growth and settling.Comment: A website with the final published version and all photodissociation cross sections and rates can be found at http://www.strw.leidenuniv.nl/~ewine/phot

LIME - a flexible, non-LTE line excitation and radiation transfer method for millimeter and far-infrared wavelengths

We present a new code for solving the molecular and atomic excitation and radiation transfer problem in a molecular gas and predicting emergent spectra. This code works in arbitrary three dimensional geometry using unstructured Delaunay latices for the transport of photons. Various physical models can be used as input, ranging from analytical descriptions over tabulated models to SPH simulations. To generate the Delaunay grid we sample the input model randomly, but weigh the sample probability with the molecular density and other parameters, and thereby we obtain an average grid point separation that scales with the local opacity. Our code does photon very efficiently so that the slow convergence of opaque models becomes traceable. When convergence between the level populations, the radiation field, and the point separation has been obtained, the grid is ray-traced to produced images that can readily be compared to observations. Because of the high dynamic range in scales that can be resolved using this type of grid, our code is particularly well suited for modeling of ALMA data. Our code can furthermore deal with overlapping lines of multiple molecular and atomic species.Comment: 13 pages, 12 figures, Accepted by A&A on 06/08/201