Search

Theoretical models of the ionization state in protoplanetary disks suggest the existence of large areas with low ionization and weak coupling between the gas and magnetic fields. In this regime hydrodynamical instabilities may become important. In this work we investigate the gas and dust structure and dynamics for a typical T Tauri system under the influence of the vertical shear instability (VSI). We use global 3D radiation hydrodynamics simulations covering all 360° of azimuth with embedded particles of 0.1 and 1 mm size, evolved for 400 orbits. Stellar irradiation heating is included with opacities for 0.1–10 μm sized dust. Saturated VSI turbulence produces a stress-to-pressure ratio of. The value of α is lowest within 30 au of the star, where thermal relaxation is slower relative to the orbital period and approaches the rate below which VSI is cut off. The rise in α from 20 to 30 au causes a dip in the surface density near 35 au, leading to Rossby wave instability and the generation of a stationary, long-lived vortex spanning about 4 au in radius and 40 au in azimuth. Our results confirm previous findings that millimeter-sized grains are strongly vertically mixed by the VSI. The scale height aspect ratio for 1 mm grains is determined to be 0.037, much higher than the value H/r = 0.007 obtained from millimeter-wave observations of the HL Tau system. The measured aspect ratio is better fit by nonideal MHD models. In our VSI turbulence model, the millimeter grains drift radially inwards and many are trapped and concentrated inside the vortex. The turbulence induces a velocity dispersion of ∼12 m s−1 for the millimeter grains, indicating that grain–grain collisions could lead to fragmentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Outflows driven by large-scale magnetic fields likely play an important role in the evolution and dispersal of protoplanetary disks and in setting the conditions for planet formation. We extend our 2D-axisymmetric nonideal MHD model of these outflows by incorporating radiative transfer and simplified thermochemistry, with the dual aims of exploring how heating influences wind launching and illustrating how such models can be tested through observations of diagnostic spectral lines. Our model disks launch magnetocentrifugal outflows primarily through magnetic tension forces, so the mass-loss rate increases only moderately when thermochemical effects are switched on. For typical field strengths, thermochemical and irradiation heating are more important than magnetic dissipation. We furthermore find that the entrained vertical magnetic flux diffuses out of the disk on secular timescales as a result of nonideal MHD. Through postprocessing line radiative transfer, we demonstrate that spectral line intensities and moment-1 maps of atomic oxygen, the HCN molecule, and other species show potentially observable differences between a model with a magnetically driven outflow and one with a weaker, photoevaporative outflow. In particular, the line shapes and velocity asymmetries in the moment-1 maps could enable the identification of outflows emanating from the disk surface. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We show that the first order (non-co-orbital) corotation torques are significantly modified by entropy gradients in a non-barotropic protoplanetary disk. Such non-barotropic torques can dramatically alter the balance that, for barotropic cases, results in the net eccentricity damping for giant gap-clearing planets embedded in the disk. We demonstrate that stellar illumination can heat the gap enough for the planet's orbital eccentricity to instead be excited. We also discuss the “Eccentricity Valley” noted in the known exoplanet population, where low-metallicity stars have a deficit of eccentric planets between ∼0.1 and ∼1 AU compared to metal-rich systems. We show that this feature in the planet distribution may be due to the self-shadowing of the disk by a rim located at the dust sublimation radius ∼0.1 AU, which is known to exist for several T Tauri systems. In the shadowed region between ∼0.1 and ∼1 AU, lack of gap insolation allows disk interactions to damp eccentricity. Outside such shadowed regions stellar illumination can heat the planetary gaps and drive eccentricity growth for giant planets. We suggest that the self-shadowing does not arise at higher metallicity due to the increased optical depth of the gas interior to the dust sublimation radius. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the observational appearance of partial gaps being opened by planets in protoplanetary disks, considering the effects of the inclination relative to the line of sight. We model the disks with static α-models with detailed radiative transfer, parameterizing the shape and size of the partially cleared gaps based on the results of hydrodynamic simulations. As in previous work, starlight falling across the gap leads to high surface brightness contrasts. The gap's trough is darkened by both shadowing and cooling, relative to the uninterrupted disk. The gap's outer wall is brightened by direct illumination and also by heating, which puffs it up so that it intercepts more starlight. In this paper, we examine the effects of inclination on resolved images of disks with and without gaps at a wide range of wavelengths. The scattering surface's offset from the disk midplane creates a brightness asymmetry along the axis of inclination, making the disk's near side appear brighter than the far side in scattered light. Finite disk thickness also causes the projected distances of equidistant points on the disk surface to be smaller on the near side of the disk as compared to the far side. Consequently, the gap shoulder on the near side of the disk should appear brighter and closer to the star than on the far side. However, if the angular resolution of the observation is coarser than the width of the brightened gap shoulder, then the gap shoulder on the far side may appear brighter because of its larger apparent size. We present a formula to recover the scale height and inclination angle of an imaged disk using simple geometric arguments and measuring disk asymmetries. Resolved images of circumstellar disks have revealed clearings and gaps, such as the transitional disk in LkCa 15. Models created using our synthetic imaging attempting to match the morphology of observed scattered light images of LkCa 15 indicate that the H-band flux deficit in the inner ~0".5 of the disk can be explained with a planet if mass is greater than 0.5 Jupiter mass. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Magnetorotational instability (MRI) is the most promising mechanism behind accretion in low-mass protostellar disks. Here we present the first analysis of the global structure and evolution of non-ideal MRI-driven T-Tauri disks on million-year timescales. We accomplish this in a 1+1D simulation by calculating magnetic diffusivities and utilizing turbulence activity criteria to determine thermal structure and accretion rate without resorting to a three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamical (MHD) simulation. Our major findings are as follows. First, even for modest surface densities of just a few times the minimum-mass solar nebula, the dead zone encompasses the giant planet-forming region, preserving any compositional gradients. Second, the surface density of the active layer is nearly constant in time at roughly 10 g cm-2, which we use to derive a simple prescription for viscous heating in MRI-active disks for those who wish to avoid detailed MHD computations. Furthermore, unlike a standard disk with constant-α viscosity, the disk midplane does not cool off over time, though the surface cools as the star evolves along the Hayashi track. Instead, the MRI may pile material in the dead zone, causing it to heat up over time. The ice line is firmly in the terrestrial planet-forming region throughout disk evolution and can move either inward or outward with time, depending on whether pileups form near the star. Finally, steady-state mass transport is an extremely poor description of flow through an MRI-active disk, as we see both the turnaround in the accretion flow required by conservation of angular momentum and peaks in M (R) bracketing each side of the dead zone. We caution that MRI activity is sensitive to many parameters, including stellar X-ray flux, grain size, gas/small grain mass ratio and magnetic field strength, and we have not performed an exhaustive parameter study here. Our 1+1D model also does not include azimuthal information, which prevents us from modeling the effects of Rossby waves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The edges of magnetically dead zones in protostellar disks have been proposed as locations where density bumps may arise, trapping planetesimals and helping form planets. Magneto-rotational turbulence in magnetically active zones provides both accretion of gas on the star and transport ofmass to the dead zone.We investigate the location of the magnetically active regions in a protostellar disk around a solar-type star, varying the disk temperature, surface density profile, and dust-to-gas ratio. We also consider stellar masses between 0.4 and 2M☉, with corresponding adjustments in the disk mass and temperature. The dead zone's size and shape are found using the Elsasser number criterion with conductivities including the contributions from ions, electrons, and charged fractal dust aggregates. The charged species' abundances are found using the approach proposed by Okuzumi. The dead zone is in most cases defined by the ambipolar diffusion. In our maps, the dead zone takes a variety of shapes, including a fish tail pointing away from the star and islands located on and off the midplane. The corresponding accretion rates vary with radius, indicating locations where the surface density will increase over time, and others where it will decrease. We show that density bumps do not readily grow near the dead zone's outer edge, independently of the disk parameters and the dust properties. Instead, the accretion rate peaks at the radius where the gas-phase metals freeze out. This could lead to clearing a valley in the surface density, and to a trap for pebbles located just outside the metal freezeout line. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the observational consequences of partial gaps being opened by planets in protoplanetary disks. We model the disk using a static α-disk model with detailed radiative transfer, parameterizing the shape and size of the partially cleared gaps based on the results of hydrodynamic simulations. Shadowing and illumination by stellar irradiation at the surface of the gap leads to increased contrast as the gap trough is deepened by shadowing and cooling and the far gap wall is puffed up by illumination and heating. In calculating observables, we find that multiple scattering is important and derive an approximation to include these effects. A gap produced by a 200M⊕ (70M⊕) planet at 10AU can lower/raise the midplane temperature of the disk by up to ~ -25%/+29% (~-11/+19) by shadowing in the gap trough and illumination on the far shoulder of the gap. At the distance of Taurus, this gap would be resolvable with ~0″.01 angular resolution. The gap contrast is most significant in scattered light and at thermal continuum wavelengths characteristic of the surface temperature, reducing or raising the surface brightness by up to order of magnitude. Since gap sizes are correlated with planet mass, this is a promising way of finding and determining the masses of planets embedded in protoplanetary disks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We carry out radiation hydrodynamical simulations of the formation of massive stars in the super-Eddington regime including both their radiative feedback and protostellar outflows. The calculations start from a prestellar core of dusty gas and continue until the star stops growing. The accretion ends when the remnants of the core are ejected, mostly by the force of the direct stellar radiation in the polar direction and elsewhere by the reradiated thermal infrared radiation. How long the accretion persists depends on whether the protostellar outflows are present. We set the mass outflow rate to 1% of the stellar sink particle's accretion rate. The outflows open a bipolar cavity extending to the core's outer edge, through which the thermal radiation readily escapes. The radiative flux is funneled into the polar directions while the core's collapse proceeds near the equator. The outflow thus extends the “flashlight effect,” or anisotropic radiation field, found in previous studies from the few hundred AU scale of the circumstellar disk up to the 0.1 parsec scale of the core. The core's flashlight effect allows core gas to accrete on the disk for longer, in the same way that the disk's flashlight effect allows disk gas to accrete on the star for longer. Thus although the protostellar outflows remove material near the core's poles, causing slower stellar growth over the first few free-fall times, they also enable accretion to go on longer in our calculations. The outflows ultimately lead to stars of somewhat higher mass. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the effect that non-equilibrium chemistry in dynamical models of collapsing molecular cloud cores has on measurements of the magnetic field in these cores, the degree of ionization, and the mean molecular weight of ions. We find that OH and CN, usually used in Zeeman observations of the line-of-sight magnetic field, have an abundance that decreases toward the center of the core much faster than the density increases. As a result, Zeeman observations tend to sample the outer layers of the core and consistently underestimate the core magnetic field. The degree of ionization follows a complicated dependence on the number density at central densities up to 105 cm–3 for magnetic models and 106 cm–3 in non-magnetic models. At higher central densities, the scaling approaches a power law with a slope of –0.6 and a normalization which depends on the cosmic-ray ionization rate ζ and the temperature T as (ζT)1/2. The mean molecular weight of ions is systematically lower than the usually assumed value of 20-30, and, at high densities, approaches a value of 3 due to the asymptotic dominance of the H+3 ion. This significantly lower value implies that ambipolar diffusion operates faster. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We combine dynamical and non-equilibrium chemical modeling of evolving prestellar molecular cloud cores and investigate the evolution of molecular abundances in the contracting core. We model both magnetic cores, with varying degrees of initial magnetic support, and non-magnetic cores, with varying collapse delay times. We explore, through a parameter study, the competing effects of various model parameters in the evolving molecular abundances, including the elemental C/O ratio, the temperature, and the cosmic-ray ionization rate. We find that different models show their largest quantitative differences at the center of the core, whereas the outer layers, which evolve slower, have abundances which are severely degenerate among different dynamical models. There is a large range of possible abundance values for different models at a fixed evolutionary stage (central density), which demonstrates the large potential of chemical differentiation in prestellar cores. However, degeneracies among different models, compounded with uncertainties induced by other model parameters, make it difficult to discriminate among dynamical models. To address these difficulties, we identify abundance ratios between particular molecules, the measurement of which would have maximal potential for discrimination among the different models examined here. In particular, we find that the ratios between NH3 and CO, NH2 and CO, and NH3 and HCO+ are sensitive to the evolutionary timescale, and that the ratio between HCN and OH is sensitive to the C/O ratio. Finally, we demonstrate that measurements of the central deviation (central depletion or enhancement) of abundances of certain molecules are good indicators of the dynamics of the core. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]