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Protoplanetary Disk Structures in Ophiuchus. II. Extension to Fainter Sources

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Abstract

  • We present new results from a significant extension of our previous high angular resolution (0farcs3 ? 40 AU) submillimeter array survey of the 340 GHz (880 ?m) thermal continuum emission from dusty circumstellar disks in the ~1 Myr old Ophiuchus star-forming region. An expanded sample is constructed to probe disk structures that emit significantly lower millimeter luminosities (hence dust masses), down to the median value for T Tauri stars. Using a Monte Carlo radiative transfer code, the millimeter visibilities and broadband spectral energy distribution for each disk are simultaneously reproduced with a two-dimensional parametric model for a viscous accretion disk that has a surface density profile ? vprop (R/Rc )–?exp [ – (R/Rc )2–?]. We find wide ranges of characteristic radii (Rc = 14-198 AU) and disk masses (Md = 0.004-0.143 M sun), but a narrow distribution of surface density gradients (? = 0.4-1.1) that is consistent with a uniform value lang?rang = 0.9 ± 0.2 and independent of mass (or millimeter luminosity). In this sample, we find a correlation between the disk luminosity/mass and characteristic radius, such that fainter disks are both smaller and less massive. We suggest that this relationship is an imprint of the initial conditions inherited by the disks at their formation epoch, compare their angular momenta with those

Publication Date

  • 2010

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