Dynamical Masses of T Tauri Stars and Calibration of Pre-Main-Sequence Evolution

By M. Simon, A. Dutrey, S. Guilloteau. 2000

366 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We have used the high sensitivity and resolution of the IRAM interferometer to produce subarcsecond 12CO J = 2-1 images of nine protoplanetary disks surrounding T Tauri stars in the Taurus-Auriga cloud (seven singles and two binaries). The images demonstrate the disks are in Keplerian rotation around their central stars. Using the least-square fit method described in the 1998 work by Guilloteau & Dutrey, we derive the disk's properties, in particular its inclination angle and rotation velocity, hence the dynamical mass. Since the disk mass is usually small, this is a direct measurement of the stellar mass. Typically, we reach an internal precision of 10% in the determinations of stellar mass. The overall accuracy is limited by the uncertainty in the distance to a specific star. In a distance-independent way, we compare the derived masses with theoretical tracks of pre-main-sequence evolution. Combined with the mean distance to the Taurus region (140 pc), for stars with mass close to 1 M☉, our results tend to favor the tracks with cooler photospheres (higher masses for a given spectral type). We find that in UZ Tau E, the disk and the spectroscopic binary orbit appear to have different inclinations.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/6da8ce96db20ddedf2042c9dbce279594d26ccac

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Citations in the corpus

• Accretion disks in luminous young stellar objects (2015, result): “…emission observations of low-mass YSOs have revealed that the velocity field of the circumstellar disks is consistent with Keplerian rotation (e.g., Simon et al., 2000; Piétu et al., 2007), even for the youngest Class 0 objects, as recently confirmed by CARMA and ALMA observations (L1527 IRS:…”
• Submillimeter lines from circumstellar disks around pre-main sequence stars (2001, methodology): “Some lines have also been imaged by Simon et al. (2000) and Duvert et al. (2000) with the IRAM Plateau de Bure interferometer.”
• Structure of the DM Tau Outer Disk: Probing the vertical kinetic temperature gradient (2003, methodology): “One of the key parameters determined from such an analysis is the stellar mass: the initial work on DM Tau was followed by more systematic measurements for a dozen stars (Simon et al. 2000).”
• CO emission from discs around isolated HAeBe and Vega-excess stars (2005, neutral): “We also include published T Tauri disc radii from Simon et al. (2000) as well as model fits to the CO upper limits for stars in Table 1 with f ≥ 0.1, ie which are predicted to have measurable CO emission (see discussion above).”
• The Disk Around CoKu Tauri/4: Circumbinary, Not Transitional (2008, methodology): “Simon et al. (2000) used resolved CO 2-1 observations of disks around several T Tauri stars to measure their masses directly.”
• Organic molecules in protoplanetary disks around T Tauri and Herbig Ae stars (2004, background): “Its age is estimated to be ∼10 million years, although Simon et al. (2000) argue for an age of only 3–5 million years.”
• Probing the structure of protoplanetary disks: a comparative study of DM Tau, LkCa 15, and MWC 480 (2007, methodology): “Compared to previous papers (e.g. Simon et al. 2000; Duvert et al. 2000; Dutrey et al. 1998), the new fits include all the refinements of the method described in Sec.3 and in Piétu et al. (2006).”
• A Survey and Analysis of Spitzer Infrared Spectrograph Spectra of T Tauri Stars in Taurus (2006, background): “UZ Tau A is surrounded by an accreting circumbinary disk; even though the B components are also surrounded by accretion disks, their outer disks are likely truncated (Jensen et al. 1996; Simon et al. 2000; Hartigan & Kenyon 2003).”
• PROTOPLANETARY DISK STRUCTURES IN OPHIUCHUS (2009, background): “…of line emission from trace molecular species, which suffer from the additional complexities of excitation and abundance variations (Dutrey et al. 1998, 2003; Guilloteau & Dutrey 1998; Guilloteau et al. 1999; Simon et al. 2000; Dartois et al. 2003; Piétu et al. 2003, 2007; Isella et al. 2007).”
• A Spectroscopic Survey of Subarcsecond Binaries in the Taurus-Auriga Dark Cloud with the Hubble Space Telescope (2002, background): “Dynamical masses from disk orbital motion have now been measured accurately around a few TTSs (Duvert et al. 1998; Simon et al. 2000; Guilloteau et al. 1999).”
• A SPATIALLY RESOLVED INNER HOLE IN THE DISK AROUND GM AURIGAE (2009, background): “The channel and moment maps are broadly consistent with the expected kinematic pattern for material in Keplerian rotation about the central star, substantially inclined to our line of sight (as in Dutrey et al. 1998; Simon et al. 2000).”
• An Assessment of Dynamical Mass Constraints on Pre-Main-Sequence Evolutionary Tracks (2003, methodology): “Nine pre–main-sequence stars have masses determined from disk kinematics (Simon et al. 2000; Dutrey et al. 2003).”
• Sub-arcsec imaging of the AB Aur molecular disk and envelope at millimeter wavelengths: a non Keplerian disk (2005, methodology): “We thus attempted to model the emission by a simple Keplerian disk model, in hydrostatic equilibrium, as performed successfully for T Tauri stars like DM Tau (Guilloteau & Dutrey 1998), GM Aur (Dutrey et al. 1998) and other PMS stars including the Herbig Ae star MWC 480 (Simon et al. 2000).”
• THE VLA NASCENT DISK AND MULTIPLICITY SURVEY OF PERSEUS PROTOSTARS (VANDAM). II. MULTIPLICITY OF PROTOSTARS IN THE PERSEUS MOLECULAR CLOUD (2016, background): “Scales <500 au are important because this is the size of the largest disks observed toward Class II sources (e.g., Simon et al. 2000), and at smaller scales companion sources may form within gravitationally unstable disks (Adams et al. 1989).”
• Observational Constraints on the Formation and Evolution of Binary Stars (2001, background): “Although considerable uncertainties remain in the assumptions used to calculate these models, recent studies by White et al. (1999) and Simon et al. (2000) have shown that the evolutionary models of Baraffe et al. (1998) computed with a mixing length equal to nearly twice the pressure scale height…”