English

Cm-wavelength observations of MWC758: resolved dust trapping in a vortex

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics 2018-12-12 v2 Earth and Planetary Astrophysics Astrophysics of Galaxies

Abstract

The large crescents imaged by ALMA in transition disks suggest that azimuthal dust trapping concentrates the larger grains, but centimetre-wavelengths continuum observations are required to map the distribution of the largest observable grains. A previous detection at ~1cm of an unresolved clump along the outer ring of MWC758 (Clump1), and buried inside more extended sub-mm continuum, motivates followup VLA observations. Deep multiconfiguration integrations reveal the morphology of Clump 1 and additional cm-wave components which we characterize via comparison with a deconvolution of recent 342GHz data (~1mm). Clump1, which concentrates ~1/3 of the whole disk flux density at ~1cm, is resolved as a narrow arc with a deprojected aspect ratio Chi>5.6, and with half the azimuthal width than at 342 GHz. The spectral trends in the morphology of Clump1 are quantitatively consistent with the Lyra-Lin prescriptions for dust trapping in an anticyclonic vortex, provided with porous grains (f~0.2+-0.2) in a very elongated (Chi~14+-3) and cold (T~23+-2K) vortex. The same prescriptions constrain the turbulence parameter alpha and the gas surface density Sigma_g through log10( alpha x Sigma_g /g/cm2)~-2.3+-0.4, thus requiring values for Sigma_g larger than a factor of a few compared to that reported in the literature from the CO isotopologues, if alpha <~ 1E-3. Such physical conditions imply an appreciably optically thick continuum even at cm-wavelengths (tau(33GHz)~0.2). A secondary and shallower peak at 342GHz is about twice fainter relative to Clump1 at 33GHz. Clump2 appears to be less efficient at trapping large grains.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1805.03023,
  title  = {Cm-wavelength observations of MWC758: resolved dust trapping in a vortex},
  author = {Simon Casassus and Sebastian Marino and Wladimir Lyra and Clement Baruteau and Matias Vidal and Alwyn Wootten and Sebastian Perez and Felipe Alarcon and Marcelo Barraza and Miguel Carcamo and Ruobing Dong and Anibal Sierra and Zhaohuan Zhu and Luca Ricci and Valentin Christiaens and Lucas Cieza},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1805.03023},
  year   = {2018}
}

Comments

accepted to MNRAS