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Chemically tracing the water snowline in protoplanetary disks with HCO$^+$ by Leemker, M.; Hoff, M. L. R. van 't; Trapman, L.; van Gelder, M. L.; Hogerheijde, M. R.; Ruíz-Rodríguez, D.; van Dishoeck, E. F. is a scholarly article available to read on EtoBox.

What is Chemically tracing the water snowline in protoplanetary disks with HCO$^+$ about?

[Abridged] Planet formation is expected to be enhanced around snowlines in protoplanetary disks, in particular around the water snowline. However, the close proximity of the water snowline to the host star and water in the Earth's atmosphere makes a direct detection of the water snowline in protoplanetary disks challenging. Following earlier work on protostellar envelopes, the aim of this research is to investigate the validity of HCO$^+$ and H$^{13}$CO$^+$, as tracers of the water snowline in protoplanetary disks, as HCO$^+$ is destroyed by gas-phase water. Two small chemical networks are used to predict the HCO$^+$ abundance in a typical Herbig Ae disk. Subsequently, the corresponding emission profiles are modelled for H$^{13}$CO$^+$ and HCO$^+$ $J=2-1$, which provides the best balance between brightness and optical depth effects of the continuum emission. The HCO$^+$ abundance jumps by two orders of magnitude just outside the water snowline at 4.5 AU. We find that the emission of H$^{13}$CO$^+$ and HCO$^+$ is ring-shaped due to three effects: destruction of HCO$^+$ by gas-phase water, continuum optical depth, and molecular excitation effects. The presence of gas-phase water caus

Author

Leemker, M.; Hoff, M. L. R. van 't; Trapman, L.; van Gelder, M. L.; Hogerheijde, M. R.; Ruíz-Rodríguez, D.; van Dishoeck, E. F.

Published

2020

Language

EN