1 research outputs found
Theoretical spectra of photoevaporating protoplanetary discs: An atlas of atomic and low-ionisation emission lines
We present a calculation of the atomic and low-ionisation emission line
spectra of photoevaporating protoplanetary discs. Line luminosities and
profiles are obtained from detailed photoionisation calculations of the disc
and wind structures surrounding young active solar-type stars. The disc and
wind density and velocity fields were obtained from the recently developed
radiation-hydrodynamic models of Owen et al., that include stellar X-ray and
EUV irradiation of protoplanetary discs at various stages of clearing, from
primordial sources to inner hole sources of various hole sizes.
Our models compare favourably with currently available observations, lending
support to an X-ray driven photoevaporation model for disc dispersal. In
particular, we find that X-rays drive a warm, predominantly neutral flow where
the OI 6300A line can be produced by neutral hydrogen collisional excitation.
Our models can, for the first time, provide a very good match to both
luminosities and profiles of the low-velocity component of the OI 6300A line
and other forbidden lines observed by Hartigan et al., which covered a large
sample of T-Tauri stars.
We find that the OI 6300A and the NeII 12.8um lines are predominantly
produced in the X-ray-driven wind and thus appear blue-shifted by a few km/s
for some of the systems when observed at non-edge-on inclinations. We note
however that blue-shifts are only produced under certain conditions: X-ray
luminosity, spectral shape and inner hole size all affect the location of the
emitting region and the physical conditions in the wind. We caution therefore
that while a blueshifted line is a tell-tale sign of an outflow, the lack of a
blueshift should not be necessarily interpreted as a lack of outflow.Comment: 18 pages, 7 figures, accepted to be published in MNRAS - changes in
the revised version: reference list update