Browsing by Subject "Protoplanetary disks"
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Item Probing giant-planet forming zones around Solar-like stars with CO(2017-08) Yu, Mo, Ph. D.; Kraus, Adam L.; Evans, Neal J.; Dodson-Robinson, Sarah; Willacy, Karen; Lacy, John; Jaffe, Daniel; Bergin, EdwinProtoplanetary disks are dusty disks around young stars where planets are formed. The evolution and composition of protoplanetary disks determine the time, environments and materials available for planet formation. However fundamental properties of protoplanetary disks such as mass, composition, and the angular momentum transfer mechanism are poorly constrained by observations. In this dissertation, we discuss the thermal and chemical evolution of protoplanetary disks around Solar-type stars, and evaluate methods to measure two key parameters - disk mass and turbulent velocity in the framework of an evolving disk system. We first build a chemical evolution model based on an MRI-active disk around a Solar-type star, and discuss the chemical depletion of CO due to the formation of complex organic molecules (Chapter 2). We then investigate the challenges one faces when measuring disk masses with CO due to the chemical depletion of CO and optical depth effects (Chapter 3). We propose strategies to correct for the CO depletion effect and constrain the disk mass within factor of a few accuracy. We also investigate the possibility of constraining turbulent velocities with CO line profiles in Chapter 4. Peak-to-trough ratios of CO rotational lines have been proposed as a robust probe for turbulent velocity. However we show that the peak-to-trough ratio could vary by $25\%$ due uncertainties in effects of CO depletion. One would underestimate the degree of turbulence if the chemical depletion of CO is not properly accounted for.Item Tracing the CO “ice line'' in an MRI-active protoplanetary disk with rare CO isotopologues(2013-08) Yu, Mo, Ph. D.; Dodson-Robinson, Sarah E.The properties of planet-forming midplanes of protostellar disks remain largely unprobed by observations due to the high optical depth of common molecular lines and continuum. However, rotational emission lines from rare isotopologues may have optical depth near unity in the vertical direction, so that the lines are strong enough to be detected, yet remain transparent enough to trace the disk midplane. In this thesis, we present a chemical model of an MRI-active protoplanetary disk including different C, O isotopes and detailed photochemical reactions. The CO condensation front is found to be at 1.5 AU on the disk midplane around a solar like star, and its location remains almost unchanged during 3Myr of evolution. The optical depth of low-order rotational lines of C¹⁷O are around unity, which suggests it may be possible to see into the disk midplane using C¹⁷O. Such ALMA observations would provide estimates of the disk midplane temperature if the CO ice lines were spatially or spectrally resolved. With our computed C¹⁷O/H₂ abundance ratio, one would also be able to measure the disk masses by measuring the intensity of gas emission.