Disks around T Tauri Stars with SPHERE (DARTTS-S). I. SPHERE/IRDIS Polarimetric Imaging of Eight Prominent T Tauri Disks

By H. Avenhaus, Sascha P. Quanz, A. Garufi, S. Pérez, S. Casassus, C. Pinte, G. Bertrang, C. Caceres, M. Benisty, C. Dominik. Astrophysical Journal, 2018

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We present the first part of our Disks ARound T Tauri Stars with SPHERE (DARTTS-S) survey: observations of eight T Tauri stars that were selected based on their strong (sub)millimeter excesses using SPHERE/IRDIS polarimetric differential imaging in the J and H bands. All observations successfully detect the disks, which appear vastly different in size, from ≈80 au in scattered light to >400 au, and display total polarized disk fluxes between 0.06% and 0.89% of the stellar flux. For five of these disks, we are able to determine the three-dimensional structure and the flaring of the disk surface, which appears to be relatively consistent across the different disks, with flaring exponents α between ≈1.1 and ≈1.6. We also confirm literature results with regard to the inclination and position angle of several of our disks and are able to determine which side is the near side of the disk in most cases. While there is a clear trend of disk mass with stellar ages (≈1 to >10 Myr), no correlations of disk structures with age were found. There are also no correlations with either stellar mass or submillimeter flux. We do not detect significant differences between the J and H bands. However, we note that while a high fraction (7/8) of the disks in our sample show ring-shaped substructures, none of them display spirals, in contrast to the disks around more massive Herbig Ae/Be stars, where spiral features are common.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

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Citations in the corpus

• The Disk Substructures at High Angular Resolution Project (DSHARP). I. Motivation, Sample, Calibration, and Overview (2018, background): “Again, similar conclusions are being drawn from complementary mea- 3 surements of scattered light from small dust grains (e.g., van Boekel et al. 2017; Avenhaus et al. 2018).”
• The Disk Substructures at High Angular Resolution Project (DSHARP). VII. The Planet–Disk Interactions Interpretation (2018, background): “This h/r is slightly smaller than the simple estimate with Equation (12), but the faint emission at the near-IR scattered light image (Avenhaus et al. 2018) may support that the disk is indeed thin (another possibility is that the disk is significantly less flared).”
• Molecules with ALMA at Planet-forming Scales (MAPS). I. Program Overview and Highlights (2021, background): “Observations in scattered light also indicate the presence of three rings (Avenhaus et al. 2018).”
• The Disk Substructures at High Angular Resolution Project (DSHARP). II. Characteristics of Annular Substructures (2018, methodology): “…Long et al. 2018a), but have also been observed in scattered light tracing sub-micron-sized dust grains in the disk atmosphere (e.g., van Boekel et al. 2017; Avenhaus et al. 2018; Muro-Arena et al. 2018) and in molecular emission (e.g., Isella et al. 2016; Fedele et al. 2017; Teague et al. 2017).”
• Discovery of a planetary-mass companion within the gap of the transition disk around PDS 70 (2018, background): “This can be explained by the fact that the regions close to the star in PDI observations are affected by PSF damping effects which are more strongly pronounced at shorter wavelengths where the Strehl ratio is significantly lower (Avenhaus et al. 2014a, 2018).”