Can I read Disentangling Protoplanetary Disk Gas Mass and Carbon Depletion Through Combined Atomic and Molecular Tracers on EtoBox?

Disentangling Protoplanetary Disk Gas Mass and Carbon Depletion Through Combined Atomic and Molecular Tracers by Sturm, J. A.; Booth, A. S.; McClure, M. K.; Leemker, M.; van Dishoeck, E. F. is a scholarly article available to read on EtoBox.

What is Disentangling Protoplanetary Disk Gas Mass and Carbon Depletion Through Combined Atomic and Molecular Tracers about?

The total disk gas mass and elemental C, N, O composition of protoplanetary disks are crucial ingredients for our understanding of planet formation. Measuring the gas mass is complicated, since H$_2$ cannot be detected in the cold bulk of the disk and the elemental abundances with respect to hydrogen are degenerate with gas mass in all disk models. We present new NOEMA observations of CO, $^{13}$CO, C$^{18}$O and optically thin C$^{17}$O $J$=2-1 lines, and use additional high angular resolution Atacama Large Millimeter Array millimeter continuum and CO data to construct a representative model of LkCa 15. The transitions that constrain the gas mass and carbon abundance most are C$^{17}$O 2-1, N${_2}$H$^+$ 3-2 and HD 1-0. Using these three molecules we find that the gas mass in the LkCa 15 disk is $M_\mathrm{g}=0.01 ^{+0.01}_{-0.004} M_{\odot}$, a factor of six lower than estimated before. The carbon abundance is C/H = ($3 \pm 1.5) \times10^{-5}$, implying a moderate depletion of elemental carbon by a factor of 3-9. All other analyzed transitions also agree with these numbers, within a modeling uncertainty of a factor of two. Using the resolved \ce{C2H} image we find a C/O ratio of $

Author

Sturm, J. A.; Booth, A. S.; McClure, M. K.; Leemker, M.; van Dishoeck, E. F.

Published

2022

Language

EN