Gas signatures of Herbig Ae/Be disks probed with Herschel SPIRE spectroscopy

Herbig Ae/Be objects, like their lower mass counterparts T Tauri stars, are seen to form a stable circumstellar disk which is initially gas-rich and could ultimately form a planetary system. We present Herschel SPIRE 460-1540 GHz spectra of five targets out of a sample of 13 young disk sources, showing line detections mainly due to warm CO gas.Comment: to be published in proceedings of IAU symposium 299 (Victoria, BC, Canada, June 2013

Hydrogen Fluoride in High-Mass Star-forming Regions

Hydrogen fluoride has been established to be an excellent tracer of molecular hydrogen in diffuse clouds. In denser environments, however, the HF abundance has been shown to be approximately two orders of magnitude lower. We present Herschel/HIFI observations of HF J=1-0 toward two high-mass star formation sites, NGC6334 I and AFGL 2591. In NGC6334 I the HF line is seen in absorption in foreground clouds and the source itself, while in AFGL 2591 HF is partially in emission. We find an HF abundance with respect to H2 of 1.5e-8 in the diffuse foreground clouds, whereas in the denser parts of NGC6334 I, we derive a lower limit on the HF abundance of 5e-10. Lower HF abundances in dense clouds are most likely caused by freeze out of HF molecules onto dust grains in high-density gas. In AFGL 2591, the view of the hot core is obstructed by absorption in the massive outflow, in which HF is also very abundant 3.6e-8) due to the desorption by sputtering. These observations provide further evidence that the chemistry of interstellar fluorine is controlled by freeze out onto gas grains.Comment: accepted in Ap

Evidence for the start of planet formation in a young circumstellar disk

The growth of dust grains in protoplanetary disks is a necessary first step towards planet formation. This growth has been inferred via observations of thermal dust emission towards mature protoplanetary systems (age >2 million years) with masses that are, on average, similar to Neptune3. In contrast, the majority of confirmed exoplanets are heavier than Neptune. Given that young protoplanetary disks are more massive than their mature counterparts, this suggests that planet formation starts early, but evidence for grain growth that is spatially and temporally coincident with a massive reservoir in young disks remains scarce. Here, we report observations on a lack of emission of carbon monoxide isotopologues within the inner ~15 au of a very young (age ~100,000 years) disk around the Solar-type protostar TMC1A. By using the absence of spatially resolved molecular line emission to infer the gas and dust content of the disk, we conclude that shielding by millimeter-size grains is responsible for the lack of emission. This suggests that grain growth and millimeter-size dust grains can be spatially and temporally coincident with a mass reservoir sufficient for giant planet formation. Hence, planet formation starts during the earliest, embedded phases in the life of young stars.Comment: Accepted for publication in Nature Astronomy, 3 figures, 3 extended figure

Episodic infall towards a compact disk in B335?

Previous observations of B335 have presented evidence of ongoing infall in various molecular lines, e.g., HCO$^+$, HCN, CO. There have been no confirmed observations of a rotationally supported disk on scales greater than ~12~au. The presence of an outflow in B335 suggests that also a disk should be present or in formation. To constrain the earliest stages of protostellar evolution and disk formation, we aim to map the region where gas falls inwards and observationally constrain its kinematics. Furthermore, we aim to put strong limits on the size and orientation of any disk-like structure in B335. We use high angular resolution $^{13}$CO data from ALMA, and combine it with shorter-baseline archival data to produce a high-fidelity image of the infall in B335. We also revisit the imaging of high-angular resolution Band 6 continuum data to study the dust distribution in the immediate vicinity of B335. Continuum emission shows an elliptical structure (10 by 7 au) with a position angle 5 degrees east of north, consistent with the expectation for a forming disk in B335. A map of the infall velocity (as estimated from the $^{13}$CO emission), shows evidence of asymmetric infall, predominantly from the north and south. Close to the protostar, infall velocities appear to exceed free-fall velocities. 3D radiative transfer models, where the infall velocity is allowed to vary within the infall region, can explain the observed kinematics. The data suggests that a disk has started to form in B335 and that gas is falling towards that disk. However, kinematically-resolved line data towards the disk itself is needed to confirm the presence of a rotationally supported disk around this young protostar. The measured high infall velocities are not easily reconcilable with a magnetic braking scenario and suggest that there is a pressure gradient that allows the infall velocity to vary in the region.Comment: 14 pages, 11 figure

Observing Extended Sources with the \Herschel SPIRE Fourier Transform Spectrometer

The Spectral and Photometric Imaging Receiver (SPIRE) on the European Space Agency's Herschel Space Observatory utilizes a pioneering design for its imaging spectrometer in the form of a Fourier Transform Spectrometer (FTS). The standard FTS data reduction and calibration schemes are aimed at objects with either a spatial extent much larger than the beam size or a source that can be approximated as a point source within the beam. However, when sources are of intermediate spatial extent, neither of these calibrations schemes is appropriate and both the spatial response of the instrument and the source's light profile must be taken into account and the coupling between them explicitly derived. To that end, we derive the necessary corrections using an observed spectrum of a fully extended source with the beam profile and the source's light profile taken into account. We apply the derived correction to several observations of planets and compare the corrected spectra with their spectral models to study the beam coupling efficiency of the instrument in the case of partially extended sources. We find that we can apply these correction factors for sources with angular sizes up to \theta_{D} ~ 17". We demonstrate how the angular size of an extended source can be estimated using the difference between the sub-spectra observed at the overlap bandwidth of the two frequency channels in the spectrometer, at 959<\nu<989 GHz. Using this technique on an observation of Saturn, we estimate a size of 17.2", which is 3% larger than its true size on the day of observation. Finally, we show the results of the correction applied on observations of a nearby galaxy, M82, and the compact core of a Galactic molecular cloud, Sgr B2.Comment: Accepted for publication by A&

Gas signatures of Herbig Ae/Be disks probed with Herschel SPIRE spectroscopy

Herbig Ae/Be objects, like their lower mass counterparts T Tauri stars, are seen to form a stable circumstellar disk which is initially gas-rich and could ultimately form a planetary system. We present Herschel SPIRE 460-1540 GHz spectra of five targets out of a sample of 13 young disk sources, showing line detections mainly due to warm CO gas