Browsing by Author "Ricci, Luca"

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    A Dust-trapping Ring in the Planet-hosting Disk of Elias 2-24
    (IOP Publishing, 2024) Carvalho, Adolfo S.; Pérez, Laura M.; Sierra, Anibal; Mellado, Maria Jesus; Hillenbrand, Lynne A.; Andrews, Sean; Benisty, Myriam; Birnstiel, Tilman; Carpenter, John M.; Guzmán, Viviana V.; Huang, Jane; Isella, Andrea; Kurtovic, Nicolas; Ricci, Luca; Wilner, David J.
    Rings and gaps are among the most widely observed forms of substructure in protoplanetary disks. A gap–ring pair may be formed when a planet carves a gap in the disk, which produces a local pressure maximum following the gap that traps inwardly drifting dust grains and appears as a bright ring owing to the enhanced dust density. A dust-trapping ring would provide a promising environment for solid growth and possibly planetesimal production via the streaming instability. We present evidence of dust trapping in the bright ring of the planet-hosting disk Elias 2-24, from the analysis of 1.3 and 3 mm Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array observations at high spatial resolution (0.″029, 4.0 au). We leverage the high spatial resolution to demonstrate that larger grains are more efficiently trapped and place constraints on the local turbulence (8 × 10−4 < α turb < 0.03) and the gas-to-dust ratio (Σ g /Σ d < 30) in the ring. Using a scattering-included marginal probability analysis, we measure a total dust disk mass of . We also show that at the orbital radius of the proposed perturber the gap is cleared of material down to a flux contrast of 10−3 of the peak flux in the disk.
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    CO and Dust Properties in the TW Hya Disk from High-resolution ALMA Observations
    (IOP Publishing, 2018) Huang, Jane; Andrews, Sean M.; Cleeves, L. Ilsedore; Öberg, Karin I.; Wilner, David J.; Bai, Xuening; Birnstiel, Til; Carpenter, John; Hughes, A. Meredith; Isella, Andrea; Pérez, Laura M.; Ricci, Luca; Zhu, Zhaohuan
    We analyze high angular resolution ALMA observations of the TW Hya disk to place constraints on the CO and dust properties. We present new, sensitive observations of the 12CO J = 3 − 2 line at a spatial resolution of 8 au (0farcs14). The CO emission exhibits a bright inner core, a shoulder at r ≈ 70 au, and a prominent break in slope at r ≈ 90 au. Radiative transfer modeling is used to demonstrate that the emission morphology can be reasonably reproduced with a 12CO column density profile featuring a steep decrease at r ≈ 15 au and a secondary bump peaking at r ≈ 70 au. Similar features have been identified in observations of rarer CO isotopologues, which trace heights closer to the midplane. Substructure in the underlying gas distribution or radially varying CO depletion that affects much of the disk's vertical extent may explain the shared emission features of the main CO isotopologues. We also combine archival 1.3 mm and 870 μm continuum observations to produce a spectral index map at a spatial resolution of 2 au. The spectral index rises sharply at the continuum emission gaps at radii of 25, 41, and 47 au. This behavior suggests that the grains within the gaps are no larger than a few millimeters. Outside the continuum gaps, the low spectral index values of α ≈ 2 indicate either that grains up to centimeter size are present or that the bright continuum rings are marginally optically thick at millimeter wavelengths.
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    Investigating the Early Evolution of Planetary Systems with ALMA and the Next Generation Very Large Array
    (IOP Publishing, 2018) Ricci, Luca; Liu, Shang-Fei; Isella, Andrea; Li, Hui
    We investigate the potential of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and the Next Generation Very Large Array (ngVLA) to observe substructures in nearby young disks which are due to the gravitational interaction between disk material and planets close to the central star. We simulate the gas and dust dynamics in the disk using the LA-COMPASS hydrodynamical code. We generate synthetic images for the dust continuum emission at submillimeter to centimeter wavelengths and simulate ALMA and ngVLA observations. We explore the parameter space of some of the main disk and planet properties that would produce substructures that can be visible with ALMA and the ngVLA. We find that ngVLA observations with an angular resolution of 5 milliarcsec at 3 mm can reveal and characterize gaps and azimuthal asymmetries in disks hosting planets with masses down to $\approx 5\,{M}_{\oplus }\approx 1\mbox{--}5\,\mathrm{au}$ from a solar-like star in the closest star-forming regions, whereas ALMA can detect gaps down to planetary masses of $\approx 20\,{M}_{\oplus }$ at 5 au. Gaps opened by super-Earth planets with masses $\approx 5\mbox{--}10\,{M}_{\oplus }$ are detectable by the ngVLA in the case of disks with low viscosity ($\alpha \sim {10}^{-5}$) and low pressure scale height (h ≈ 0.025 au at 5 au). The ngVLA can measure the proper motion of azimuthal asymmetric structures associated with the disk–planet interaction as well as possible circumplanetary disks on timescales as short as one to a few weeks for planets at 1–5 au from the star.
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    Measurement of Circumstellar Disk Sizes in the Upper Scorpius OB Association with ALMA
    (IOP Publishing, 2017) Barenfeld, Scott A.; Carpenter, John M.; Sargent, Anneila I.; Isella, Andrea; Ricci, Luca
    We present detailed modeling of the spatial distributions of gas and dust in 57 circumstellar disks in the Upper Scorpius OB Association observed with ALMA at submillimeter wavelengths. We fit power-law models to the dust surface density and CO J = 3–2 surface brightness to measure the radial extent of dust and gas in these disks. We found that these disks are extremely compact: the 25 highest signal-to-noise disks have a median dust outer radius of 21 au, assuming an $R^-1$ dust surface density profile. Our lack of CO detections in the majority of our sample is consistent with these small disk sizes assuming the dust and CO share the same spatial distribution. Of seven disks in our sample with well-constrained dust and CO radii, four appear to be more extended in CO, although this may simply be due to the higher optical depth of the CO. Comparison of the Upper Sco results with recent analyses of disks in Taurus, Ophiuchus, and Lupus suggests that the dust disks in Upper Sco may be approximately three times smaller in size than their younger counterparts, although we caution that a more uniform analysis of the data across all regions is needed. We discuss the implications of these results for disk evolution.
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    Ringed Structures of the HD 163296 Protoplanetary Disk Revealed by ALMA
    (American Physical Society, 2016) Isella, Andrea; Guidi, Greta; Testi, Leonardo; Liu, Shangfei; Li, Hui; Li, Shengtai; Weaver, Erik; Boehler, Yann; Carperter, John M.; De Gregorio-Monsalvo, Itziar; Manara, Carlo F.; Natta, Antonella; Pérez, Laura M.; Ricci, Luca; Sargent, Anneila; Tazzari, Marco; Turner, Neal
    We present Atacama Large Millimeter and Submillimeter Array observations of the protoplanetary disk around the Herbig Ae star HD 163296 that trace the spatial distribution of millimeter-sized particles and cold molecular gas on spatial scales as small as 25 astronomical units (A.U.). The image of the disk recorded in the 1.3 mm continuum emission reveals three dark concentric rings that indicate the presence of dust depleted gaps at about 60, 100, and 160 A.U. from the central star. The maps of the 12CO, 13CO, and C18O J=2−1 emission do not show such structures but reveal a change in the slope of the radial intensity profile across the positions of the dark rings in the continuum image. By comparing the observations with theoretical models for the disk emission, we find that the density of CO molecules is reduced inside the middle and outer dust gaps. However, in the inner ring there is no evidence of CO depletion. From the measurements of the dust and gas densities, we deduce that the gas-to-dust ratio varies across the disk and, in particular, it increases by at least a factor 5 within the inner dust gap compared to adjacent regions of the disk. The depletion of both dust and gas suggests that the middle and outer rings could be due to the gravitational torque exerted by two Saturn-mass planets orbiting at 100 and 160 A.U. from the star. On the other hand, the inner dust gap could result from dust accumulation at the edge of a magnetorotational instability dead zone, or from dust opacity variations at the edge of the CO frost line. Observations of the dust emission at higher angular resolution and of molecules that probe dense gas are required to establish more precisely the origins of the dark rings observed in the HD 163296 disk.
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    The Millimeter Continuum Size–Frequency Relationship in the UZ Tau E Disk
    (IOP, 2018) Tripathi, Anjali; Andrews, Sean M.; Birnstiel, Tilman; Chandler, Claire J.; Isella, Andrea; Pérez, Laura M.; Harris, R.J.; Ricci, Luca; Wilner, David J.; Carpenter, John M.; Calvet, N.; Corder, S.A.; Deller, A.T.; Dullemond, C.P.; Greaves, J.S.; Henning, Th.; Kwon, W.; Lazio, J.; Linz, H.; Testi, L.
    We present high spatial resolution observations of the continuum emission from the young multiple star system UZ Tau at frequencies from 6 to 340 GHz. To quantify the spatial variation of dust emission in the UZ Tau E circumbinary disk, the observed interferometric visibilities are modeled with a simple parametric prescription for the radial surface brightnesses at each frequency. We find evidence that the spectrum steepens with radius in the disk, manifested as a positive correlation between the observing frequency and the radius that encircles a fixed fraction of the emission (R eff ∝ ν 0.34±0.08). The origins of this size–frequency relation are explored in the context of a theoretical framework for the growth and migration of disk solids. While that framework can reproduce a similar size–frequency relation, it predicts a steeper spectrum than that observed. Moreover, it comes closest to matching the data only on timescales much shorter (≤1 Myr) than the putative UZ Tau age (~2–3 Myr). These discrepancies are direct consequences of the rapid radial drift rates predicted by models of dust evolution in a smooth gas disk. One way to mitigate that efficiency problem is to invoke small-scale gas pressure modulations that locally concentrate drifting solids. If such particle traps reach high-continuum optical depths at 30–340 GHz with a ~30%–60% filling fraction in the inner disk (r lesssim 20 au), they can also explain the observed spatial gradient in the UZ Tau E disk spectrum.