Related papers: Full 2D radiative transfer modelling of transition…

(Abridged) We present radiation transfer simulations of a massive (8 Msun) protostar forming from a massive (Mc=60 Msun) protostellar core, extending the model developed by Zhang & Tan (2011). The two principal improvements are (1)…

(Sub)millimeter dust opacities are required for converting the observable dust continuum emission to the mass, but their values have long been uncertain, especially in disks around young stellar objects. We propose a method to constrain the…

Circumstellar disks are characteristic for star formation and vanish during the first few Myr of stellar evolution. During this time planets are believed to form in the dense midplane by growth, sedimentation and aggregation of dust.…

The mass of the gaseous reservoir in young circumstellar disks is a crucial initial condition for the formation of planetary systems, but estimates vary by orders of magnitude. In some disks with resolvable cavities, sharp inner disk warps…

The origin of the inner dust cavities observed in transition discs remains unknown. The segregation of dust and size of the cavity is expected to vary depending on which clearing mechanism dominates grain evolution. We present the results…

We investigate the nature of the innermost regions of seven circumstellar disks around pre-main-sequence stars. Our object sample contains disks apparently at various stages of their evolution. Both single stars and spatially resolved…

The physical origin of the large cavities observed in transition disks is to date still unclear. Different physical mechanisms (e.g., a companion, dead zones, enhanced grain growth) produce disk cavities of different depth, and the expected…

Measuring the masses of protoplanetary disks is crucial for understanding their planet-forming potential. Typically, dust masses are derived from (sub-)millimeter flux density measurements plus assumptions for the opacity, temperature, and…

Magnetospheric accretion has been thoroughly studied in young stellar systems with full non-evolved accretion disks, but it is poorly documented for transition disk objects with large inner cavities. We aim at characterizing the star-disk…

Investigating the molecular gas in the inner regions of protoplanetary disks provides insight into how the molecular disk environment changes during the transition from primordial to debris disk systems. We conduct a small survey of…

We present GPI polarized intensity imagery of HD 100453 in Y-, J-, and K1 bands which reveals an inner gap ($9 - 18$ au), an outer disk ($18-39$ au) with two prominent spiral arms, and two azimuthally-localized dark features also present in…

Transitional disks are objects whose inner disk regions have undergone substantial clearing. The Spitzer Space Telescope produced detailed spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of transitional disks that allowed us to infer their radial dust…

Observations of pre-transitional disks show a narrow inner dust ring and a larger outer one. They are separated by a cavity with no or only little dust. We propose an efficient recycling mechanism for the inner dust ring which keeps it in a…

The role of radiation pressure in dust migration and the opening of inner cavities in transitional disks is revisited in this paper. Dust dynamics including radiation pressure is often studied in axisymmetric models, but in this work, we…

We present two dimensional Monte-Carlo radiative transfer models for the disk of the eclipsing binary $\epsilon$ Aur by fitting its spectral energy distribution from optical to the far-IR wavelengths. We also report new observations of…

T Tauri stars are low-mass young stars whose disks provide the setting for planet formation. Despite this, their structure is poorly understood. We present new infrared interferometric observations of the SU Aurigae circumstellar…

The transition between massive Class II circumstellar disks and Class III debris disks, with dust residuals, has not yet been clearly understood. Disks are expected to dissipate with time, and dust clearing in the inner regions can be the…

We present OVRO Millimeter Array lambda = 3.4 - 1.2 mm dust continuum and spectral line observations of the accretion disk encircling the T Tauri star LkCa 15. The 1.2 mm dust continuum emission is resolved, and gives a minimum diameter of…

Transitional disks are protoplanetary disks with opacity gaps/cavities in their dust distribution, a feature that may be linked to planet formation. We perform Bayesian modeling of the three transitional disks SZ Cha, CS Cha and T25…

A large set of Spitzer-selected transitional disks in the Ophiuchus molecular cloud was recently examined by Cieza et al (2010), and 4 of the targets were identified as (giant) planet-forming candidates based on the morphology of their…