RESOLVED IMAGES OF LARGE CAVITIES IN PROTOPLANETARY TRANSITION DISKS

By S. Andrews, D. Wilner, Catherine C. Espaillat, A. Hughes, C. Dullemond, M. McClure, C. Qi, Joanna M. Brown. 2011

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Circumstellar disks are thought to experience a rapid “transition” phase in their evolution that can have a considerable impact on the formation and early development of planetary systems. We present new and archival high angular resolution (0.″3 ≈ 40–75 AU) Submillimeter Array (SMA) observations of the 880 μm (340 GHz) dust continuum emission from 12 such transition disks in nearby star-forming regions. In each case, we directly resolve a dust-depleted disk cavity around the central star. Using two-dimensional Monte Carlo radiative transfer calculations, we interpret these dust disk structures in a homogeneous, parametric model framework by reproducing their SMA continuum visibilities and spectral energy distributions. The cavities in these disks are large (Rcav = 15–73 AU) and substantially depleted of small (∼μm-sized) dust grains, although their mass contents are still uncertain. The structures of the remnant material at larger radii are comparable to normal disks. We demonstrate that these large cavities are relatively common among the millimeter-bright disk population, comprising at least 1 in 5 (20%) of the disks in the bright half (and ⩾26% of the upper quartile) of the millimeter luminosity (disk mass) distribution. Utilizing these results, we assess some of the physical mechanisms proposed to account for transition disk structures. As has been shown before, photoevaporation models do not produce the large cavity sizes, accretion rates, and disk masses representative of this sample. A sufficient decrease of the dust optical depths in these cavities by particle growth would be difficult to achieve: substantial growth (to meter sizes or beyond) must occur in large (tens of AU) regions of low turbulence without also producing an abundance of small particles. Given those challenges, we suggest instead that the observations are most commensurate with dynamical clearing due to tidal interactions with low-mass companions—very young (∼1 Myr) brown dwarfs or giant planets on long-period orbits.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/cbcf452549d7a661614bfdd2fb1d6a312aa18e6a

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Citations in the corpus

ALMA continuum observations of the protoplanetary disk AS 209. Evidence of multiple gaps opened by a single planet (2017, background): “The dust mass absorption coefficients are taken from Andrews et al. (2011).”
An ALMA Survey of Protoplanetary Disks in the σ Orionis Cluster (2017, result): “…ALMA continuum detections are TDs (see Figure 4), which is interestingly similar to the 19% fraction found in Lupus (Ansdell et al. 2016) and consistent with previous findings that TDs tend to be among the brightest disks in a given star-forming region (Andrews et al. 2011; Ansdell et al. 2016).”
A millimeter Continuum Size–Luminosity Relationship for Protoplanetary Disks (2017, methodology): “The same parameterization can reproduce the emission profiles for standard, continuous disk models as well as the ring-like emission noted for “transition” disks (e.g., Andrews et al. 2011).”
Dust Evolution and the Formation of Planetesimals (2016, methodology): “These SMA data also directly resolved gaps/holes in transition disks which were already inferred from SED modeling (e.g., Brown et al. 2009; Andrews et al. 2011).”
TRANSITIONAL DISKS AS SIGNPOSTS OF YOUNG, MULTIPLANET SYSTEMS (2011, methodology): “…transitional disks with measurable accretion tend to have higher inferred masses than “classical” disks without holes, which supports planet formation as a likely explanation for observed hole structures (although the low-mass transition disk fraction is not yet well known; Andrews et al. 2011).”
Observational Signatures of Planets in Protoplanetary Disks I: Gaps Opened by Single and Multiple Young Planets in Disks (2014, methodology): “…these disks have been subsequently shown to harbor large gaps or cavities with sizes often up to tens of AU in spatially resolved observations (e.g., Thalmann et al. 2010; Mayama et al. 2012; Hashimoto et al. 2012; Hughes et al. 2009; Andrews et al. 2011; Zhang et al. 2014; Pérez et al. 2014).”
Ring shaped dust accumulation in transition disks (2012, methodology): “7, our model images are very similar to the transition disks observations in the (sub-)millimeter regime, that reveal a continuum emission as a resolved ring-like feature (e.g., Williams & Cieza 2011; Andrews et al. 2011a; Isella et al. 2012).”
Close-in planetesimal formation by pile-up of drifting pebbles (2016, background): “However, many of the observed discs do not appear smooth or axisymmetric (Mayama et al. 2012; Rameau et al. 2012; Benisty et al. 2015), and large fraction of discs exhibit an extended inner cavity (Andrews et al. 2011).”
ALMA SURVEY OF LUPUS PROTOPLANETARY DISKS. I. DUST AND GAS MASSES (2016, background): “Inner disk clearings and dust rings were later confirmed with resolved mm continuum images (e.g., Andrews et al. 2011).”
ALMA unveils rings and gaps in the protoplanetary system HD 169142: signatures of two giant protoplanets (2017, background): “Dust mass absorption cross sections are adopted from Andrews et al. (2011).”
OBSERVATIONAL SIGNATURES OF PLANETS IN PROTOPLANETARY DISKS: SPIRAL ARMS OBSERVED IN SCATTERED LIGHT IMAGING CAN BE INDUCED BY PLANETS (2015, background): “At this moment resolved mm observations of these objects suffer from insufficient spatial resolution, and could not pinpoint the mm counterparts of these arms (Chapillon et al. 2008; Isella et al. 2010, 2013; Andrews et al. 2011; Pérez et al. 2014; Marino et al. 2015).”
Our astrochemical heritage (2012, background): “presence of crystalline silicates; [244]; [314]; [389]; [297]; [330]; [373]), inner holes (probably carved by a planet or by photoevaporation, [75]; [215]; [14]; [13]; [106]).”
Gravitational Instabilities in Circumstellar Disks (2016, background): “…of argument, from measures of cloud angular momentum (Goodman et al. 1993), to stellar interactions (Adams et al. 2006), to direct observations in both absorption (Eisner et al. 2008) and millimeter wavelengths (Andrews et al. 2011) suggest that 102 − 103AU are reasonable limits for disk radii.”
The Disk Substructures at High Angular Resolution Project (DSHARP). I. Motivation, Sample, Calibration, and Overview (2018, background): “The initial foray into such work came from the “transition” disks (Strom et al. 1989; Skrutskie et al. 1990; Calvet et al. 2002), which show dense particle rings at r ≈ tens of au, outside depleted central cavities (e.g., Andrews et al. 2011; van der Marel et al. 2018; Pinilla et al. 2018).”
THE TW Hya DISK AT 870 μm: COMPARISON OF CO AND DUST RADIAL STRUCTURES (2011, methodology): “The interplay and degeneracies between these free parameters were discussed in detail by Andrews et al. (2011).”
THE MASS DEPENDENCE BETWEEN PROTOPLANETARY DISKS AND THEIR STELLAR HOSTS (2013, methodology): “We adopted the settled dust prescription and opacities discussed by Andrews et al. (2011), where small grains representing only 10% of the total dust mass are distributed at larger vertical heights to intercept stellar irradiation, and the remaining 90% of the mass is concentrated in larger grains…”
DUST FILTRATION BY PLANET-INDUCED GAP EDGES: IMPLICATIONS FOR TRANSITIONAL DISKS (2012, background): “Thus both scenarios can explain pre-transitional disk near-IR SEDs, especially for those having the same SED as classical T-Tauri disks (Andrews et al. 2011).”