Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
2008-08-30
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
Accepted for publication by ApJL, 4 pages and 3 figures
Scientific paper
10.1086/592965
We report deep Sub-Millimeter Array observations of 26 pre-main-sequence (PMS) stars with evolved inner disks. These observations measure the mass of the outer disk (r ~20-100 AU) across every stage of the dissipation of the inner disk (r < 10 AU) as determined by the IR spectral energy distributions (SEDs). We find that only targets with high mid-IR excesses are detected and have disk masses in the 1-5 M_Jup range, while most of our objects remain undetected to sensitivity levels of M_DISK ~0.2-1.5 M_Jup. To put these results in a more general context, we collected publicly available data to construct the optical to millimeter wavelength SEDs of over 120 additional PMS stars. We find that the near-IR and mid-IR emission remain optically thick in objects whose disk masses span 2 orders of magnitude (~0.5-50 M_Jup). Taken together, these results imply that, in general, inner disks start to dissipate only after the outer disk has been significantly depleted of mass. This provides strong support for photoevaporation being one of the dominant processes driving disk evolution.
Cieza Lucas. A.
Mathews Geoffrey S.
Swift Jonathan J.
Williams Jonathan P.
No associations
LandOfFree
The Masses of Transition Circumstellar Disks: Observational Support for Photoevaporation Models does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.
If you have personal experience with The Masses of Transition Circumstellar Disks: Observational Support for Photoevaporation Models, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and The Masses of Transition Circumstellar Disks: Observational Support for Photoevaporation Models will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-613375