Remnant Protoplanetary Disks Around Weak-Lined T Tauri Stars

Details Remnant Protoplanetary Disks Around Weak-Lined T Tauri Stars Remnant Protoplanetary Disks Around Weak-Lined T Tauri Stars

Jan 2011

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011aas...21733919f&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #217, #339.19; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 43, 2011

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

Nascent stars are surrounded by circumstellar disks for several Myr; it is material from these disks that adds mass to the star and also leads to the formation of planetary systems. Over time, the mass accretion rate from the disk onto the star decreases, and various mechanisms will disperse the dust and gas in the disk. At the end of this evolutionary sequence, it is thought that a pre-main-sequence star becomes a weak-lined T Tauri star (WTTS), which lacks signatures of accretion and typically also an infrared excess, implying that the dust and gas have dissipated. However, there are WTTS with infrared excesses of varying strength, which suggests that some disk material is still present. These objects are ideal for studying the late stages of disk dissipation, which are crucial for understanding and constraining planet formation.
Here we present an analysis of such objects using mid-infrared spectra obtained with the Infrared Spectrograph on the Spitzer Space Telescope. We characterize the infrared excess and thus the degree of dust depletion in these systems, derive the distribution and composition of the remaining dust, and compare these quantities with system properties, such as spectral types and disk masses. Our study will shed light on the conditions of remnant protoplanetary disks and the final disk dissipation mechanisms.
This work is supported by NASA through the Spitzer Space Telescope Fellowship Program, through a contract issued by JPL/Caltech under a contract with NASA.

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