Radiative Transfer Modeling of Passive Circumstellar Disks: Application to HR4796A

Abstract

We present a radiative transfer model which computes the spectral energy distribution of a passive, irradiated, circumstellar disk, assuming the grains are in radiative equilibrium. Dependence on radial density profile, grain temperature estimation, and optical depth profiles on the output SED are discussed. The bist fit model for HR4796A has a minimum and maximum spherical grain size of 2.2 and 1000 \mu$m respectively, a size distribution slightly steeper than the "classical" -3.5 MRN power law, grains composed of silicates, trolite, ice, and organics and a peak radial density of 1.0 x 10^-17 g cm^-2 at 70 AU, yielding a disk mass of roughly 2 M_{oplus}$.Comment: 4 pages, one figure, published in proceedings of Scientific Frontiers in Research on Extrasolar Planets, A.S.P. Conferences Series Vol. 294 (with correction in equation 3