37 research outputs found
WL 17: A Young Embedded Transition Disk
We present the highest spatial resolution ALMA observations to date of the
Class I protostar WL 17 in the Ophiuchus L1688 molecular cloud complex,
which show that it has a 12 AU hole in the center of its disk. We consider
whether WL 17 is actually a Class II disk being extincted by foreground
material, but find that such models do not provide a good fit to the broadband
SED and also require such high extinction that it would presumably arise from
dense material close to the source such as a remnant envelope. Self-consistent
models of a disk embedded in a rotating collapsing envelope can nicely
reproduce both the ALMA 3 mm observations and the broadband SED of WL 17. This
suggests that WL 17 is a disk in the early stages of its formation, and yet
even at this young age the inner disk has been depleted. Although there are
multiple pathways for such a hole to be created in a disk, if this hole were
produced by the formation of planets it could place constraints on the
timescale for the growth of planetesimals in protoplanetary disks.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, 2 tables, accepted for publication in ApJ
Protoplanetary Disks in the Orion Nebula Cluster: Gas Disk Morphologies and Kinematics as seen with ALMA
We present Atacama Large Millimeter Array CO(32) and HCO(43)
observations covering the central region of
the Orion Nebula Cluster (ONC). The unprecedented level of sensitivity
(0.1 mJy beam) and angular resolution ( AU) of these line observations enable us to search for gas-disk
detections towards the known positions of submillimeter-detected dust disks in
this region. We detect 23 disks in gas: 17 in CO(32), 17 in HCO(43),
and 11 in both lines. Depending on where the sources are located in the ONC, we
see the line detections in emission, in absorption against the warm background,
or in both emission and absorption. We spectrally resolve the gas with km
s channels, and find that the kinematics of most sources are consistent
with Keplerian rotation. We measure the distribution of gas-disk sizes and find
typical radii of 50-200 AU. As such, gas disks in the ONC are compact in
comparison with the gas disks seen in low-density star-forming regions. Gas
sizes are universally larger than the dust sizes. However, the gas and dust
sizes are not strongly correlated. We find a positive correlation between gas
size and distance from the massive star Ori C, indicating that disks
in the ONC are influenced by photoionization. Finally, we use the observed
kinematics of the detected gas lines to model Keplerian rotation and infer the
masses of the central pre-main-sequence stars. Our dynamically-derived stellar
masses are not consistent with the spectroscopically-derived masses, and we
discuss possible reasons for this discrepancy.Comment: 42 pages, 31 figure
Protoplanetary Disk Masses from Radiative Transfer Modeling: A Case Study in Taurus
Measuring the masses of protoplanetary disks is crucial for understanding
their planet-forming potential. Typically, dust masses are derived from
(sub-)millimeter flux density measurements plus assumptions for the opacity,
temperature, and optical depth of the dust. Here we use radiative transfer
models to quantify the validity of these assumptions with the aim of improving
the accuracy of disk dust mass measurements. We first carry out a controlled
exploration of disk parameter space. We find that the disk temperature is a
strong function of disk size, while the optical depth depends on both disk size
and dust mass. The millimeter-wavelength spectral index can be significantly
shallower than the naive expectation due to a combination of optical depth and
deviations from the Rayleigh-Jeans regime. We fit radiative transfer models to
the spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of 132 disks in the Taurus-Auriga
region using a Markov chain Monte Carlo approach. We used all available data to
produce the most complete SEDs used in any extant modeling study. We perform
the fitting twice: first with unconstrained disk sizes and again imposing the
disk size--brightness relation inferred for sources in Taurus. This constraint
generally forces the disks to be smaller, warmer, and more optically thick.
From both sets of fits, we find disks to be 1--5 times more massive than
when derived using (sub-)millimeter measurements and common assumptions. With
the uncertainties derived from our model fitting, the previously measured dust
mass--stellar mass correlation is present in our study but only significant at
the 2 level.Comment: 28 pages, 13 figures, accepted for publication in A
A VLA Survey For Faint Compact Radio Sources in the Orion Nebula Cluster
We present Karl G. Janksy Very Large Array (VLA) 1.3 cm, 3.6 cm, and 6 cm
continuum maps of compact radio sources in the Orion Nebular Cluster. We
mosaicked 34 square arcminutes at 1.3 cm, 70 square arcminutes at 3.6 cm and
109 square arcminutes at 6 cm, containing 778 near-infrared detected YSOs and
190 HST-identified proplyds (with significant overlap between those
characterizations). We detected radio emission from 175 compact radio sources
in the ONC, including 26 sources that were detected for the first time at these
wavelengths. For each detected source we fit a simple free-free and dust
emission model to characterize the radio emission. We extrapolate the free-free
emission spectrum model for each source to ALMA bands to illustrate how these
measurements could be used to correctly measure protoplanetary disk dust masses
from sub-millimeter flux measurements. Finally, we compare the fluxes measured
in this survey with previously measured fluxes for our targets, as well as four
separate epochs of 1.3 cm data, to search for and quantify variability of our
sources.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figures, 4 tables, ApJ, in pres
High-precision Dynamical Masses of Pre-main-sequence Stars with ALMA and Gaia
The Keplerian rotation in protoplanetary disks can be used to robustly measure stellar masses at very high precision if the source distance is known. We present Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) observations of spatially and spectrally resolved (CO)-C-12 (2-1) emission toward the disks around 2MASS J16262774-2527247 (the tertiary companion to ROXs 12 at 5100 au), CT Cha, and DH Tau. We employ detailed modeling of the Keplerian rotation profile, coupled with accurate distances from Gaia, to directly measure the stellar masses with similar to 2% precision. We also compare these direct mass measurements with the masses inferred from evolutionary models, determined in a statistically rigorous way. We find that 2MASS J16262774-2527247 has a mass of 0.535(-)(0.007)(+0.006) M-circle dot and CT Cha has a mass of 0.796(-0.014)(+0.015) M-circle dot, broadly consistent with evolutionary models, although potentially significant differences remain. DH Tau has a mass of 0.101(-0.003)(+0.004) M-circle dot, but it suffers from strong foreground absorption that may affect our mass estimate. The combination of ALMA, Gaia, and codes like pdspy, presented here, can be used to infer the dynamical masses for large samples of young stars and substellar objects, and place constraints on evolutionary models.Heising-Simons Foundation; Homer L. Dodge Endowed Chair; National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship [2012115762]; NSF AAG grant [1311910]; NASA's Science Mission DirectorateThis item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at [email protected]
AB Aurigae Resolved: Evidence for Spiral Structure
We obtained high angular resolution (~2") images of the 13CO(J=1-0) line and
2.7 millimeter continuum emission, and slightly lower resolution images of
12CO(J=1-0) and C18O(J=1-0) line emission toward the Herbig Ae star AB Aurigae.
We resolve a circumstellar disk of diameter 780 AU (FWHM) with a velocity
pattern consistent with a purely rotational disk at inclination 21.5 degrees
and position angle 58.6 degrees. Using Keplerian disk models, we find a central
source dynamical mass of 2.8+-0.1 Msun and a cutoff radius of 615 AU for the
13CO emission. Inclination, mass, and radius determined from 12CO and C18O
observations agree with those values, given optical depth and abundance
effects. As a result of the high angular resolution of our observations, we
confirm the existence of spiral structure suggested by near-IR scattered light
images and show that the spiral arms represent density contrasts in the disk.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures, accepted ApJ Letter
Protoplanetary Disk Masses in the Young NGC 2024 Cluster
We present the results from a Submillimeter Array survey of the 887 micron
continuum emission from the protoplanetary disks around 95 young stars in the
young cluster NGC 2024. Emission was detected from 22 infrared sources, with
flux densities from ~5 to 330 mJy; upper limits (at 3sigma) for the other 73
sources range from 3 to 24 mJy. For standard assumptions, the corresponding
disk masses range from ~0.003 to 0.2Msolar, with upper limits at
0.002--0.01Msolar. The NGC 2024 sample has a slightly more populated tail at
the high end of its disk mass distribution compared to other clusters, but
without more information on the nature of the sample hosts it remains unclear
if this difference is statistically significant or a superficial selection
effect. Unlike in the Orion Trapezium, there is no evidence for a disk mass
dependence on the (projected) separation from the massive star IRS2b in the NGC
2024 cluster. We suggest that this is due to either the cluster youth or a
comparatively weaker photoionizing radiation field.Comment: ApJ, in pres
Simultaneous Exoplanet Characterization and deep wide-field imaging with a diffractive pupil telescope
High-precision astrometry can identify exoplanets and measure their orbits
and masses, while coronagraphic imaging enables detailed characterization of
their physical properties and atmospheric compositions through spectroscopy. In
a previous paper, we showed that a diffractive pupil telescope (DPT) in space
can enable sub-microarcsecond accuracy astrometric measurements from wide-field
images by creating faint but sharp diffraction spikes around the bright target
star. The DPT allows simultaneous astrometric measurement and coronagraphic
imaging, and we discuss and quantify in this paper the scientific benefits of
this combination for exoplanet science investigations: identification of
exoplanets with increased sensitivity and robustness, and ability to measure
planetary masses to high accuracy. We show how using both measurements to
identify planets and measure their masses offers greater sensitivity and
provides more reliable measurements than possible with separate missions, and
therefore results in a large gain in mission efficiency. The combined
measurements reliably identify potentially habitable planets in multiple
systems with a few observations, while astrometry or imaging alone would
require many measurements over a long time baseline. In addition, the combined
measurement allows direct determination of stellar masses to percent-level
accuracy, using planets as test particles. We also show that the DPT maintains
the full sensitivity of the telescope for deep wide-field imaging, and is
therefore compatible with simultaneous scientific observations unrelated to
exoplanets. We conclude that astrometry, coronagraphy, and deep wide-field
imaging can be performed simultaneously on a single telescope without
significant negative impact on the performance of any of the three techniques.Comment: 15 pages, 6 figures. This second paper, following the paper
describing the diffractive pupil telescope (DPT) astrometric technique, shows
how simultaneous astrometry and coronagraphy observations, enabled by the DPT
concept, constrain the orbital parameters and mass of exoplanet
Isolating Dust and Free-Free Emission in ONC Proplyds with ALMA Band 3 Observations
The Orion Nebula Cluster (ONC) hosts protoplanetary disks experiencing
external photoevaporation by the cluster's intense UV field. These ``proplyds"
are comprised of a disk surrounded by an ionization front. We present ALMA Band
3 (3.1 mm) continuum observations of 12 proplyds. Thermal emission from the
dust disks and free-free emission from the ionization fronts are both detected,
and the high-resolution (0.057") of the observations allows us to spatially
isolate these two components. The morphology is unique compared to images at
shorter (sub)millimeter wavelengths, which only detect the disks, and images at
longer centimeter wavelengths, which only detect the ionization fronts. The
disks are small ( = 6.4--38 au), likely due to truncation by ongoing
photoevaporation. They have low spectral indices ()
measured between Bands 7 and 3, suggesting the dust emission is optically
thick. They harbor tens of Earth masses of dust as computed from the millimeter
flux using the standard method, although their true masses may be larger due to
the high optical depth. We derive their photoevaporative mass-loss rates in two
ways: first, by invoking ionization equilibrium, and second using the
brightness of the free-free emission to compute the density of the outflow. We
find decent agreement between these measurements and = 0.6--18.4
10 yr. The photoevaporation timescales are
generally shorter than the 1 Myr age of the ONC, underscoring the known
``proplyd lifetime problem." Disk masses that are underestimated due to being
optically thick remains one explanation to ease this discrepancy.Comment: 17 pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication in Ap