English

First Detection and Modeling of Spatially Resolved Ly$\alpha$ in TW Hya

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics 2024-02-20 v2 Earth and Planetary Astrophysics

Abstract

Lyman-α\alpha (Lyα\alpha) is the strongest emission line in the accretion-generated UV spectra from T-Tauri stars and, as such, plays a critical role in regulating chemistry within the surrounding protoplanetary disks. Due to its resonant nature, the scattering of Lyα\alpha photons along the line-of-sight encodes information about the physical properties of the intervening H I medium. In this work, we present the first spatially resolved spectral images of Lyα\alpha emission across a protoplanetary disk in the iconic face-on T-Tauri star TW Hya, observed with HST-STIS at spatial offsets 0'', ±0.2\pm 0.2'', and ±0.4\pm 0.4''. To comprehensively interpret these Lyα\alpha spectra, we utilize a 3D Monte-Carlo Lyα\alpha radiative transfer simulation considering the H I wind and protoplanetary disk. From the simulation, we constrain the wind's properties: the H I column density 1020cm2\sim 10^{20}\, \rm cm^{-2} and the outflow velocity 200kms1\sim 200\, \rm km\, s^{-1}. Our findings indicate that successfully interpreting the observed spectra necessitates scattering contributions in the H I layer within the disk. Furthermore, to explore the effect of Lyα\alpha radiative transfer on protoplanetary disk chemistry, we compute the radiation field within the scattering medium and reveal that the wind reflection causes more Lyα\alpha photons to penetrate the disk. Our results show the necessity of spatially resolved Lyα\alpha observations of a broad range of targets, which will decode the complex interactions between the winds, protoplanetary disks, and surrounding environments.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2310.14477,
  title  = {First Detection and Modeling of Spatially Resolved Ly$\alpha$ in TW Hya},
  author = {Seok-Jun Chang and Nicole Arulanantham and Max Gronke and Gregory J. Herczeg and Edwin A. Bergin},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2310.14477},
  year   = {2024}
}

Comments

17 pages, 18 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS