An unbiased ALMA spectral survey of the LkCa 15 and MWC 480 protoplanetary disks
Abstract
The volatile contents of protoplanetary disks both set the potential for planetary chemistry and provide valuable probes of defining disk system characteristics such as stellar mass, gas mass, ionization, and temperature structure. Current disk molecular inventories are fragmented, however, giving an incomplete picture: unbiased spectral line surveys are needed to assess the volatile content. We present here an overview of such a survey of the protoplanetary disks around the Herbig Ae star MWC 480 and the T Tauri star LkCa 15 in ALMA Band 7, spanning ∼36 GHz from 275 to 317 GHz and representing an order of magnitude increase in sensitivity over previous single-dish surveys. We detect 14 molecular species (including isotopologues), with five species (C34S, 13CS, H2CS, DNC, and C2D) detected for the first time in protoplanetary disks. Significant differences are observed in the molecular inventories of MWC 480 and LkCa 15, and we discuss how these results may be interpreted in light of the different physical conditions of these two disk systems.
Citation
Loomis , R A , Öberg , K I , Andrews , S M , Bergin , E , Bergner , J , Blake , G A , Cleeves , L I , Czekala , I , Huang , J , Le Gal , R , Ménard , F , Pegues , J , Qi , C , Walsh , C , Williams , J P & Wilner , D J 2020 , ' An unbiased ALMA spectral survey of the LkCa 15 and MWC 480 protoplanetary disks ' , Astrophysical Journal , vol. 893 , no. 2 , 101 . https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ab7cc8
Publication
Astrophysical Journal
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
0004-637XType
Journal article
Description
Funding: R.A.L. gratefully acknowledges funding from ALMA Student Observing Support and a Jansky Fellowship. K.I.O. acknowledges funding from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and from the Simons Foundation (SCOL #321183). J.H. acknowledges support from the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship under grant No. DGE-1144152. E.A.B. acknowledges funding through NSF grant AST-1514670 and NASA NNX16AB48G. C.W. acknowledges financial support from STFC (grant reference ST/R000549/1) and the University of Leeds.Collections
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