Protoplanetary Disks and Their Evolution

By Jonathan P. Williams, L. Cieza. 2011

1,100 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Flattened, rotating disks of cool dust and gas extending for tens to hundreds of astronomical units are found around almost all low-mass stars shortly after their birth. These disks generally persist for several million years, during which time some material accretes onto the star, some is lost through outflows and photoevaporation, and some condenses into centimeter- and larger-sized bodies or planetesimals. Through observations mainly at IR through millimeter wavelengths, we can determine how common disks are at different ages; measure basic properties including mass, size, structure, and composition; and follow their varied evolutionary pathways. In this way, we see the first steps toward exoplanet formation and learn about the origins of the Solar System. This review addresses observations of the outer parts, beyond 1 AU, of protoplanetary disks with a focus on recent IR and (sub)millimeter results and an eye to the promise of new facilities in the immediate future.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/0b90284b1b52a01a5bb2ecefb26f605b3093c6b4

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Citations in the corpus

Accretion disks in luminous young stellar objects (2015, background): “In addition, the prevalent physical conditions within disks are conducive to the formation and growth of planetary bodies (Williams & Cieza, 2011).”
How to Characterize Habitable Worlds and Signs of Life (2017, background): “Observing such highly irradiated worlds could give us clues to the composition and formation of rocky exoplanets (see, e.g., Williams & Cieza 2011).”
Forming the cores of giant planets from the radial pebble flux in protoplanetary discs (2014, background): “Such large radii are not inconsistent with those inferred from protoplanetary discs (Isella et al. 2009; Williams & Cieza 2011) and debris discs (Wyatt 2008).”
The structure of protoplanetary discs around evolving young stars (2014, background): “Streaming the disc, because during the first stages, the disc is still undergoing massive changes in its structure (Williams & Cieza 2011).”
THE TW Hya DISK AT 870 μm: COMPARISON OF CO AND DUST RADIAL STRUCTURES (2011, background): “…less abundant molecular species (see Dutrey et al. 2007), limited sensitivity to low optical depth lines and an incomplete understanding of the complicated chemistry in these disks have so far made it difficult to convert observations of the gas into density constraints (see Williams & Cieza 2011).”
CHARACTERIZING THE COOL KOIs. IV. KEPLER-32 AS A PROTOTYPE FOR THE FORMATION OF COMPACT PLANETARY SYSTEMS THROUGHOUT THE GALAXY (2012, background): “If true, the Kepler-32 planets would have necessarily formed within ∼ 10Myr, the timescale over which gas survives in protoplanetary disks (Williams & Cieza 2011).”
ALMA SURVEY OF LUPUS PROTOPLANETARY DISKS. I. DUST AND GAS MASSES (2016, background): “Surveys of the optically thick infrared (IR) emission across young stellar clusters have constrained the disk dispersal timescale to ∼10 Myr, providing important checks on planet formation theories (Haisch et al. 2001; Hernández et al. 2007; Evans et al. 2009).”
Evidence for the formation of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko through gravitational collapse of a bound clump of pebbles (2017, background): “Over the past decades, observations of PPDs have been performed over a wide range of wavelengths (see, e.g., the reviews by Williams & Cieza 2011; Testi et al. 2014).”
Possible planet-forming regions on submillimetre images (2011, background): “Note that there exist further examples of discs showing non-axisymmetric submillimetre images, such as LkCa 15 (Piétu et al. 2006), GM Aur (Hughes et al. 2009), SR 24S (Andrews et al. 2010), and J1604-2130 (Williams & Cieza 2011) for which the same phenomenon might be responsible.”
Complex organic molecules in protoplanetary disks (2013, background): “…excess angular momentum away from the protostellar system, facilitate the accretion of matter from the natal cloud onto the new star, and contain all the material, dust and gas, which will likely go on to form a surrounding planetary system (for a review, see, e.g., Williams & Cieza 2011).”
Gaps and Rings in an ALMA Survey of Disks in the Taurus Star-forming Region (2018, background): “Given the typical size (∼100 au) of protoplanetary disks (see review by Williams & Cieza 2011), spatially resolving disks in nearby star-forming regions (200 pc) requires observations with subarcsecond resolution.”
A PARAMETRIC MODELING APPROACH TO MEASURING THE GAS MASSES OF CIRCUMSTELLAR DISKS (2013, background): “There are the well known caveats regarding the possibility of optically thick emission in the inner regions of the disk and missing mass in large grains (see, e.g., Williams & Cieza 2011), and this measure of the dust mass is therefore a lower limit to the total mass of solids.”
Breaking the chains: hot super-Earth systems from migration and disruption of compact resonant chains (2017, methodology): “Our numerical simulations model the dynamical evolution of Earth-mass planets in evolving protoplanetary discs (Williams & Cieza 2011).”
Planet-Disk Interaction and Orbital Evolution (2012, background): “The structure and dynamics of these disks are clearly relevant for understanding planet formation, and we refer the interested reader to three recent reviews that discuss the theory and observations of protoplanetary disks (Dullemond & Monnier, 2010; Armitage, 2011; Williams & Cieza, 2011).”
IN SITU FORMATION AND DYNAMICAL EVOLUTION OF HOT JUPITER SYSTEMS (2015, background): “Case 2, in which the solid accretion phase generates a 10 M⊕ core, achieves an envelope mass of 3.14 M⊕ after 3 Myr.”
THE MASS DEPENDENCE BETWEEN PROTOPLANETARY DISKS AND THEIR STELLAR HOSTS (2013, background): “…hints of a correlation have been tentatively noted when a larger (inhomogeneous) sample of Herbig AeBe stars is considered (e.g., Natta et al. 2000; Williams & Cieza 2011).5 As others started to measure mm-wave luminosities from the disks around later type hosts, low detection rates and faint…”
Unveiling the gas-and-dust disk structure in HD 163296 using ALMA observations (2013, background): “The structure of these young protoplanetary disks has been the subject of intense study over a wide range of wavelengths (see Williams & Cieza 2011 for a recent review).”