Abstract High spatial resolution CO observations of midinclination (≈30°–75°) protoplanetary disks offer an opportunity to study the vertical distribution of CO emission and temperature. The asymmetry of line emission relative to the disk major axis allows for a direct mapping of the emission height above the midplane, and for optically thick, spatially resolved emission in LTE, the intensity is a measure of the local gas temperature. Our analysis of Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array archival data yields CO emission surfaces, dynamically constrained stellar host masses, and disk atmosphere gas temperatures for the disks around the following: HD 142666, MY Lup, V4046 Sgr, HD 100546, GW Lup, WaOph 6, DoAr 25, Sz 91, CI Tau, and DM Tau. These sources span a wide range in stellar masses (0.50–2.10 M ⊙ ), ages (∼0.3–23 Myr), and CO gas radial emission extents (≈200–1000 au). This sample nearly triples the number of disks with mapped emission surfaces and confirms the wide diversity in line emitting heights ( z / r ≈ 0.1 to ≳0.5) hinted at in previous studies. We compute the radial and vertical CO gas temperature distributions for each disk. A few disks show local temperature dips or enhancements, some of which correspond to dust substructures or the proposed locations of embedded planets. Several emission surfaces also show vertical substructures, which all align with rings and gaps in the millimeter dust. Combining our sample with literature sources, we find that CO line emitting heights weakly decline with stellar mass and gas temperature, which, despite large scatter, is consistent with simple scaling relations. We also observe a correlation between CO emission height and disk size, which is due to the flared structure of disks. Overall, CO emission surfaces trace ≈2–5× gas pressure scale heights (H g ) and could potentially be calibrated as empirical tracers of H g .
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Midplane temperature and outer edge of the protoplanetary disk around HD 163296
Knowledge of the midplane temperature of protoplanetary disks is one of the key ingredients in theories of dust growth and planet formation. However, direct measurement of this quantity is complicated, and often depends on the fitting of complex models to data. In this paper we demonstrate a method to directly measure the midplane gas temperature from an optically thick molecular line if the disk is moderately inclined. The only model assumption that enters is that the line is very optically thick, specifically in the midplane region where we wish to measure the temperature. Freeze-out of the molecule onto dust grains could thwart this. However, in regions that are expected to be warm enough to avoid freeze-out, this method should work. We apply the method to the CO 2–1 line channel maps of the disk around HD 163296. We find that the midplane temperature between 100 and 400 au drops only mildly from 25 K down to 18 K. While we see no direct evidence of the midplane being optically thin due to strong CO depletion by freeze-out, we cannot rule it out either. The fact that the inferred temperatures are close to the expected CO freeze-out temperature could be an indication of this. Incidently, for the disk around HD 163296 we also find dynamic evidence for a rather abrupt outer edge of the disk, suggestive of outside-in photoevaporation or truncation by an unseen companion.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1715719
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10199065
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Astronomy & Astrophysics
- Volume:
- 633
- ISSN:
- 0004-6361
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- A137
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201936438
