Consistent dust and gas models for protoplanetary disks

Abstract

We propose a set of standard assumptions for the modelling of Class II and III protoplanetary disks, which includes detailed continuum radiative transfer, thermo-chemical modelling of gas and ice, and line radiative transfer from optical to cm wavelengths. The first paper of this series focuses on the assumptions about the shape of the disk, the dust opacities, dust settling, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). In particular, we propose new standard dust opacities for disk models, we present a simplified treatment of PAHs in radiative equilibrium which is sufficient to reproduce the PAH emission features, and we suggest using a simple yet physically justified treatment of dust settling. We roughly adjust parameters to obtain a model that predicts continuum and line observations that resemble typical multi-wavelength continuum and line observations of Class II T Tauri stars. We systematically study the impact of each model parameter (disk mass, disk extension and shape, dust settling, dust size and opacity, gas/dust ratio, etc.) on all mainstream continuum and line observables, in particular on the SED, mm-slope, continuum visibilities, and emission lines including [OI] 63 μm, high-J CO lines, (sub-)mm CO isotopologue lines, and CO fundamental ro-vibrational lines. We find that evolved dust properties, i.e. large grains, often needed to fit the SED, have important consequences for disk chemistry and heating/cooling balance, leading to stronger near-to far-IR emission lines in general. Strong dust settling and missing disk flaring have similar effects on continuum observations, but opposite effects on far-IR gas emission lines. PAH molecules can efficiently shield the gas from stellar UV radiation because of their strong absorption and negligible scattering opacities in comparison to evolved dust. The observable millimetre-slope of the SED can become significantly more gentle in the case of cold disk midplanes, which we find regularly in our T Tauri models. We propose to use line observations of robust chemical tracers of the gas, such as O, CO, and H 2 , as additional constraints to determine a number of key properties of the disks, such as disk shape and mass, opacities, and the dust/gas ratio, by simultaneously fitting continuum and line observations.

The Depletion of Water During Dispersal of Planet-Forming Disk Regions

“…By converting these measurements respectively into a characteristic CO emitting radius R co and the vibrational excitation temperature, this correlation revealed cooler CO gas as larger gaps are formed in disks (i.e., as R co increases). This observational finding suggests an inside-out depletion scenario, which is now being increasingly supported by independent modeling explorations (Hein Bertelsen et al 2016;Woitke et al 2016). To distinguish them from dust gaps or holes detected by other techniques, we call them "molecular gaps/ holes," especially after the discovery in this work that they are shared by three of the most abundant molecules in disks: CO, H 2 O, and OH (Sections 3 and 4).…”

Shadows cast on the transition disk of HD 135344B

“…We consider the grains to be irregular in shape by setting the maximum volume void fraction used for the distribution of hollow spheres (DHS) to 0.8 . The composition, porosity, and irregularity are set to typical values from the European FP7 project DiscAnalysis (DIANA; Woitke et al 2016). Grain size dependent dust settling is calculated with the prescription from Woitke et al (2016) who follow the method from Dubrulle et al (1995) but provide an adjustment for the parametrized vertical gas structure.…”

The Influence of Forming Companions on the Spectral Energy Distributions of Stars with Circumstellar Discs

“…3.1.2 SED profile shape versus disc inner radius and temperature profile In Woitke et al (2016), the authors showed the effect of different dust and disc parameters on the shape of model SED profile. In the present paper, we consider only two disc parameters: the location of the disc inner radius and a power law of the disc temperature profile.…”