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  • Solving Grain Size Inconsis...
    Ohashi, Satoshi; Kataoka, Akimasa; van der Marel, Nienke; Hull, Charles L. H.; Dent, William R. F.; Pohl, Adriana; Pinilla, Paola; van Dishoeck, Ewine F.; Henning, Thomas

    Astrophysical journal/˜The œAstrophysical journal, 09/2020, Volume: 900, Issue: 1
    Journal Article

    The protoplanetary disk around Ophiuchus IRS 48 shows an azimuthally asymmetric dust distribution in (sub)millimeter observations, which is interpreted as a vortex, where millimeter/centimeter-sized particles are trapped at the location of the continuum peak. In this paper, we present 860 m ALMA observations of polarized dust emission from this disk. The polarized emission was detected toward a part of the disk. The polarization vectors are parallel to the disk minor axis, and the polarization fraction was derived to be 1%-2%. These characteristics are consistent with models of self-scattering of submillimeter-wave emission, which indicate a maximum grain size of ∼100 m. However, this is inconsistent with the previous interpretation of millimeter/centimeter dust particles being trapped by a vortex. To explain both ALMA polarization and previous ALMA and Very Large Array observations, we suggest that the thermal emission at 860 m wavelength is optically thick (τabs ∼ 7.3) at the dust trap with a maximum observable grain size of ∼100 m rather than an optically thin case with centimeter-sized dust grains. We note that we cannot rule out that larger dust grains are accumulated near the midplane if the 860 m thermal emission is optically thick.