ABSTRACT
The strong X-ray irradiation from young solar-type stars may play a crucial role in the thermodynamics and chemistry of circumstellar discs, driving their evolution in the last stages of ...disc dispersal as well as shaping the atmospheres of newborn planets. In this paper, we study the influence of stellar mass on circumstellar disc mass-loss rates due to X-ray irradiation, extending our previous study of the mass-loss rate’s dependence on the X-ray luminosity and spectrum hardness. We focus on stars with masses between 0.1 and 1 M⊙, which are the main target of current and future missions to find potentially habitable planets. We find a linear relationship between the mass-loss rates and the stellar masses when changing the X-ray luminosity accordingly with the stellar mass. This linear increase is observed also when the X-ray luminosity is kept fixed because of the lower disc aspect ratio which allows the X-ray irradiation to reach larger radii. We provide new analytical relations for the mass-loss rates and profiles of photoevaporative winds as a function of the stellar mass that can be used in disc and planet population synthesis models. Our photoevaporative models correctly predict the observed trend of inner-disc lifetime as a function of stellar mass with an increased steepness for stars smaller than 0.3 M⊙, indicating that X-ray photoevaporation is a good candidate to explain the observed disc dispersal process.
Variability is a defining characteristic of young low-mass stars that are still accreting material from their primordial protoplanetary disk. Here we present the largest Hubble Space Telescope (HST) ...variability study of classical T Tauri stars (CTTS) to date. For five of these objects, we obtained a total of 25 spectra with the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph. Mass accretion rates and the fraction of the star covered by accretion columns (i.e., filling factors) were inferred using 1D NLTE physical models whose parameters were fit within a Bayesian framework. On week-long timescales, typical changes in the mass accretion rates range up to a factor of about two, while changes of up to a factor of about five are inferred for the filling factors. In addition to this, we observed a possible accretion burst in the transitional disk system GM Aur, and an incident we interpret as a chance alignment of an accretion column and the undisturbed photosphere along our line of sight in the full disk system VW Cha. We also measure correlations between mass accretion rate and line luminosities for use as secondary tracers of accretion. We place our objects in context with recent high-cadence photometric surveys of low-mass star formation regions and highlight the need for more broad-wavelength, contemporaneous data to better understand the physical mechanisms behind accretion variability in CTTS.
Abstract
We present the largest sample of brown dwarf (BD) protoplanetary disk spectral energy distributions modeled to date. We compile 49 objects with ALMA observations from four star-forming ...regions:
ρ
Ophiuchus, Taurus, Lupus, and Upper Scorpius. Studying multiple regions with various ages enables us to probe disk evolution over time. Specifically, from our models, we obtain values for dust grain sizes, dust settling, and disk mass; we compare how each of these parameters vary between the regions. We find that disk mass decreases with age. We also find evidence of disk evolution (i.e., grain growth and significant dust settling) in all four regions, indicating that planet formation and disk evolution may begin to occur at earlier stages. We generally find that these disks contain too little mass to form planetary companions, though we cannot rule out that planet formation may have already occurred. Finally, we examine the disk mass–host mass relationship and find that BD disks are largely consistent with previously determined relationships for disks around T Tauri stars.
Our understanding of protoplanetary disks is rapidly departing from the classical view of a smooth, axisymmetric disk. This is in part thanks to the high angular resolution that (sub)millimeter ...observations can provide. Here, we present the combined results of Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) (0.9 mm) and Very Large Array (VLA) (7 mm) dust continuum observations toward the protoplanetary disk around the solar analog GM Aur. Both images clearly resolve the ∼35 au inner cavity. The ALMA observations also reveal a fainter disk that extends up to ∼250 au. We model our observations using two approaches: an analytical fit to the observed deprojected visibilities, and a physical disk model that fits the spectral energy distribution as well as the VLA and ALMA observations. Despite not being evident in the deconvolved images, the VLA and ALMA visibilities can only be fitted with two bright rings of radii ∼40 and ∼80 au. Our physical model indicates that this morphology is the result of an accumulation or trapping of large dust grains, probably due to the presence of two pressure bumps in the disk. Even though alternative mechanisms cannot be discarded, the multiple rings suggest that forming planets may have cleared at least two gaps in the disk. Finally, our analysis suggests that the inner cavity might display different sizes at 0.9 and 7 mm. This discrepancy could be caused by the presence of free-free emission close to the star at 7 mm, or by a more compact accumulation of the large dust grains at the edge of the cavity.
Abstract
We present spectral energy distribution (SED) modeling of 338 disks around T Tauri stars from 11 star-forming regions, ranging from ∼0.5 to 10 Myr old. The disk masses we infer from our SED ...models are typically greater than those reported from (sub)millimeter surveys by a factor of 1.5–5, with the discrepancy being generally higher for the more massive disks. Masses derived from (sub)millimeter fluxes rely on the assumption that the disks are optically thin at all millimeter wavelengths, which may cause the disk masses to be underestimated since the observed flux is not sensitive to the whole mass in the disk; SED models do not make this assumption and thus yield higher masses. Disks with more absorbing material should be optically thicker at a given wavelength, which could lead to a larger discrepancy for disks around massive stars when the disk temperature is scaled by the stellar luminosity. We also compare the disk masses and degree of dust settling across the different star-forming regions and find that disks in younger regions are more massive than disks in older regions, but with a similar degree of dust settling. Together, these results offer potential partial solutions to the “missing” mass problem: disks around T Tauri stars may indeed have enough material to form planetary systems, though previous studies have underestimated the mass by assuming the disks to be optically thin; these planetary systems may also form earlier than previously theorized since significant dust evolution (i.e., settling) is already apparent in young disks.
Abstract
Accretion plays an important role in protoplanetary disk evolution, and it is thought that the accretion mechanism changes between low- and high-mass stars. Here we characterize accretion in ...intermediate-mass, pre-main-sequence Herbig Ae/Be (HAeBe) stars to search for correlations between accretion and system properties. We present new high-resolution, near-infrared spectra from the Immersion GRating INfrared Spectrograph for 102 HAeBes and analyze the accretion-tracing Br
γ
line at 2.166
μ
m. We also include the samples of Fairlamb et al. and Donehew & Brittain, for a total of 155 targets. We find a positive correlation between the Br
γ
and stellar luminosity, with a change in the slope between the Herbig Aes and Bes. We use
L
Br
γ
to determine the accretion luminosity and rate. We find that the accretion luminosity and rate depend on stellar mass and age; however, the trend disappears when normalizing the accretion luminosity by the stellar luminosity. We classify the objects into flared (group I) or flat (group II) disks and find that there is no trend with accretion luminosity or rate, indicating that the disk dust structure is not impacting accretion. We test for Br
γ
variability in objects that are common to our sample and previous studies. We find that the Br
γ
line equivalent width is largely consistent between the literature observations and those that we present here, except in a few cases where we may be seeing changes in the accretion rate.
Abstract
Far-infrared and (sub)millimeter fluxes can be used to study dust in protoplanetary disks, the building blocks of planets. Here, we combine observations from the
Herschel Space Observatory
...with ancillary data of 284 protoplanetary disks in the Taurus, Chamaeleon I, and Ophiuchus star-forming regions, covering from the optical to mm/cm wavelengths. We analyze their spectral indices as a function of wavelength and determine their (sub)millimeter slopes when possible. Most disks display observational evidence of grain growth, in agreement with previous studies. No correlation is found between other tracers of disk evolution and the millimeter spectral indices. A simple disk model is used to fit these sources, and we derive posterior distributions for the optical depth at 1.3 mm and 10 au, the disk temperature at this same radius, and the dust opacity spectral index
β
. We find the fluxes at 70
μ
m to correlate strongly with disk temperatures at 10 au, as derived from these simple models. We find tentative evidence for spectral indices in Chamaeleon I being steeper than those of disks in Taurus/Ophiuchus, although more millimeter observations are needed to confirm this trend and identify its possible origin. Additionally, we determine the median spectral energy distribution of each region and find them to be similar across the entire wavelength range studied, possibly due to the large scatter in disk properties and morphologies.
We present a detailed multiwavelength characterization of the multi-ring disk of HD 169142. We report new Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) observations at 3 mm and analyze them ...together with archival 0.89 and 1.3 mm data. Our observations resolve three out of the four rings in the disk previously seen in high-resolution ALMA data. A simple parametric model is used to estimate the radial profile of the dust optical depth, temperature, density, and particle size distribution. We find that the multiple ring features of the disk are produced by annular accumulations of large particles, probably associated with gas pressure bumps. Our model indicates that the maximum dust grain size in the rings is ∼1 cm, with slightly flatter power-law size distributions than the interstellar medium-like size distribution (p ∼ 3.5) found in the gaps. In particular, the inner ring (∼26 au) is associated with a strong and narrow buildup of dust particles that could harbor the necessary conditions to trigger the streaming instability. According to our analysis, the snowlines of the most important volatiles do not coincide with the observed substructures. We explore different ring formation mechanisms and find that planet-disk interactions are the most likely scenario to explain the main features of HD 169142. Overall, our multiwavelength analysis provides some of the first unambiguous evidence of the presence of radial dust traps in the rings of HD 169142. A similar analysis in a larger sample of disks could provide key insights on the impact that disk substructures have on the dust evolution and planet formation processes.
Abstract
Interpreting the short-timescale variability of the accreting, young, low-mass stars known as Classical T Tauri stars remains an open task. Month-long, continuous light curves from the ...Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) have become available for hundreds of T Tauri stars. With this vast data set, identifying connections between the variability observed by TESS and short-timescale accretion variability is valuable for characterizing the accretion process. To this end, we obtained short-cadence TESS observations of 14 T Tauri stars in the Taurus star formation region along with simultaneous ground-based,
UBVRI
-band photometry to be used as accretion diagnostics. In addition, we combine our data set with previously published simultaneous near-UV–near-IR Hubble Space Telescope spectra for one member of the sample. We find evidence that much of the short-timescale variability observed in the TESS light curves can be attributed to changes in the accretion rate, but note significant scatter between separate nights and objects. We identify hints of time lags within our data set that increase at shorter wavelengths, which we suggest may be evidence of longitudinal density stratification of the accretion column. Our results highlight that contemporaneous, multiwavelength observations remain critical for providing context for the observed variability of these stars.
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