TY - JOUR
T1 - THE INNER STRUCTURE OF THE TW HYA DISK AS REVEALED IN SCATTERED LIGHT
AU - Debes, John H.
AU - Jang-Condell, Hannah
AU - Schneider, Glenn
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2016. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.
PY - 2016/3/1
Y1 - 2016/3/1
N2 - We observe a significant change in the TW Hya disk interior to 40 au via archival unpolarized multi-wavelength Hubble Space Telescope/STIS and NICMOS images with an inner working angle of 0″.4 (22 au). Our images show the outer edge of a clearing at every wavelength with similar behavior, demonstrating that the feature is structural, rather than due to some property of polarized light in the disk. We compare our observations to those taken by Akiyama et al. and Rapson et al., and discuss the spectral evolution of the disk interior to 80 au. We construct a model with two gaps: one at 30 au and one at 80 au that fit the observed surface brightness profile but overpredicts the absolute brightness of the disk. Our models require an additional dimming to be consistent with observations, which we tentatively ascribe to shadowing. The gap structures seen in scattered light are spatially coincident with sub-millimeter detections of CO and N2H+, and are near expected condensation fronts of these molecular species, providing tentative evidence that the structures seen in scattered light may be correlated with chemical changes in the disk.
AB - We observe a significant change in the TW Hya disk interior to 40 au via archival unpolarized multi-wavelength Hubble Space Telescope/STIS and NICMOS images with an inner working angle of 0″.4 (22 au). Our images show the outer edge of a clearing at every wavelength with similar behavior, demonstrating that the feature is structural, rather than due to some property of polarized light in the disk. We compare our observations to those taken by Akiyama et al. and Rapson et al., and discuss the spectral evolution of the disk interior to 80 au. We construct a model with two gaps: one at 30 au and one at 80 au that fit the observed surface brightness profile but overpredicts the absolute brightness of the disk. Our models require an additional dimming to be consistent with observations, which we tentatively ascribe to shadowing. The gap structures seen in scattered light are spatially coincident with sub-millimeter detections of CO and N2H+, and are near expected condensation fronts of these molecular species, providing tentative evidence that the structures seen in scattered light may be correlated with chemical changes in the disk.
KW - planet-disk interactions
KW - planets and satellites: formation
KW - protoplanetary disks
KW - stars: individual (TW Hya)
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U2 - 10.3847/2041-8205/819/1/L1
DO - 10.3847/2041-8205/819/1/L1
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84960154835
SN - 2041-8205
VL - 819
JO - Astrophysical Journal Letters
JF - Astrophysical Journal Letters
IS - 1
M1 - L1
ER -