Grain Growth in the Circumstellar Disks of the Young Stars CY Tau and DoAr 25

Abstract

We present new results from the Disks@EVLA program for two young stars: CY Tau and DoAr 25. We trace continuum emission arising from their circusmtellar disks from spatially resolved observations, down to tens of AU scales, at λ = 0.9, 2.8, 8.0, 9.8 mm for DoAr 25 and at λ = 1.3, 2.8, 7.1 mm for CY Tau. Additionally, we constrain the amount of emission whose origin is different from thermal dust emission from 5 cm observations. Directly from interferometric data, we find that observations at 7 mm and 1 cm trace emission from a compact disk while millimeter-wave observations trace an extended disk structure. From a physical disk model, where we characterize the disk structure of CY Tau and DoAr 25 at wavelengths shorter than 5 cm, we find that (1) dust continuum emission is optically thin at the observed wavelengths and over the spatial scales studied, (2) a constant value of the dust opacity is not warranted by our observations, and (3) a high-significance radial gradient of the dust opacity spectral index, β, is consistent with the observed dust emission in both disks, with low-β in the inner disk and high-β in the outer disk. Assuming that changes in dust properties arise solely due to changes in the maximum particle size (a_(max)), we constrain radial variations of a_(max) in both disks, from cm-sized particles in the inner disk (R < 40 AU) to millimeter sizes in the outer disk (R > 80 AU). These observational constraints agree with theoretical predictions of the radial-drift barrier, however, fragmentation of dust grains could explain our a_(max)(R) constraints if these disks have lower turbulence and/or if dust can survive high-velocity collisions.

Additional Information

© 2015 The American Astronomical Society. Received 2015 May 4; accepted 2015 September 24; published 2015 October 27. We thank the referee for valuable comments. The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc. Ongoing CARMA development and operations are supported by the National Science Foundation under a cooperative agreement, and by the CARMA partner universities. The SMA is a joint project between the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and the Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics, funded by the Smithsonian Institution and Academia Sinica. Part of this research was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Caltech, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Facilities:CARMA - Combined Array for Research in Millimeter-Wave Astronomy, SMA - SubMillimeter Array, VLA - Very Large Array.

Attached Files

Published - Pérez_2015_ApJ_813_41.pdf

Accepted Version - 1509.07520.pdf

Files

Additional details