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Giovanni Rosotti

Publications and source records attributed to Giovanni Rosotti.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

exoALMA XII: Weighing and sizing exoALMA disks with rotation curve modelling

The exoALMA large program offers a unique opportunity to investigate the fundamental properties of protoplanetary disks, such as their masses and sizes, providing important insights in the mechanism responsible for the transport of angular momentum. In this work, we model the rotation curves of CO isotopologues $^{12}$CO and $^{13}$CO of ten sources within the exoALMA sample, and we constrain the stellar mass, the disk mass and the density scale radius through precise characterization of the pressure gradient and disk self gravity. We obtain dynamical disk masses for our sample measuring the self-gravitating contribution to the gravitational potential. We are able to parametrically describe their surface density, and all of them appear gravitationally stable. By combining dynamical disk masses with dust continuum emission data, we determine an averaged gas-to-dust ratio of approximately 400, not statistically consistent with the standard value of 100, assuming optically thin dust emission. In addition, the measurement of the dynamical scale radius allows for direct comparison with flux-based radii of gas and dust. This comparison suggests that substructures may influence the size of the dust disk, and that CO depletion might reconcile our measurements with thermochemical models. Finally, with the stellar mass, disk mass, scale radius, and accretion rate, and assuming self-similar evolution of the surface density, we constrain the effective $α_S$ for these systems. We find a broad range of $α_S$ values ranging between $10^{-5}$ and $10^{-2}$.

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exoALMA IV: Substructures, Asymmetries, and the Faint Outer Disk in Continuum Emission

The exoALMA Large Program targeted a sample of 15 disks to study gas dynamics within these systems, and these observations simultaneously produced continuum data at 0.9 mm (331.6 GHz) with exceptional surface brightness sensitivity at high angular resolution. To provide a robust characterization of the observed substructures, we performed a visibility space analysis of the continuum emission from the exoALMA data, characterizing axisymmetric substructures and nonaxisymmetric residuals obtained by subtracting an axisymmetric model from the observed data. We defined a nonaxisymmetry index and found that the most asymmetric disks predominantly show an inner cavity and consistently present higher values of mass accretion rate and near-infrared excess. This suggests a connection between outer disk dust substructures and inner disk properties. The depth of the data allowed us to describe the azimuthally averaged continuum emission in the outer disk, revealing that larger disks (both in dust and gas) in our sample tend to be gradually tapered compared to the sharper outer edge of more compact sources. Additionally, the data quality revealed peculiar features in various sources, such as shadows, inner disk offsets, tentative external substructures, and a possible dust cavity wall.

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A Novel Method to Estimate the FUV Flux and a Catalogue for Star-Hosting Discs in Nearby Star-Forming Regions

Protoplanetary discs, when externally irradiated by Far Ultraviolet (FUV) photons from OBA-type stars, lose material through photoevaporative winds, reducing the amount of material available to form planets. Understanding the link between environmental irradiation and observed disc properties requires accurately evaluating the FUV flux at star-hosting discs, which can be challenging due stellar parallax uncertainties. In this paper, we address this issue proposing a novel approach: using the local density distribution of a star-forming region (i.e. 2D pairwise star separations distribution) and assuming isotropy, we infer 3D separations between star-hosting discs and massive stars. We test this approach on synthetic clusters, showing that it significantly improves the accuracy compared to previous methods. We compute FUV fluxes for a large sample of star-bearing discs in 7 regions within 200 pc, 6 regions in Orion, and Serpens sub-regions, providing a publicly accessible catalogue. We find that discs in regions hosting late-type B and early-type A stars can reach non-negligible irradiation levels for disc evolution (10-100 G0). We investigate dust disc masses relative to FUV fluxes detecting hints of a negative correlation when restricting to average region ages. However, we emphasize the need for more stellar and disc measurements at >10^2 G0 to probe the dependence of disc properties on the environmental irradiation. Including average interstellar dust extinction, median FUV fluxes are not significantly attenuated, though this result may change if high-resolution 3D dust extinction maps were available. The method presented in this work is a powerful tool that can be expanded to additional regions.

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The centimeter emission from planet-forming disks in Taurus

The last decade has witnessed remarkable advances in the characterization of the (sub-)millimeter emission from planet-forming disks. Instead, the study of the (sub-)centimeter emission has made more limited progress, to the point that only a few exceptional disk-bearing objects have been characterized in the centimeter regime. This work takes a broad view of the centimeter emission from a large sample with VLA observations that is selected from previous ALMA surveys of more representative disks in brightness and extent. We report on the detection and characterization of flux at centimeter wavelengths from 21 sources in the Taurus star-forming region. Complemented by literature and archival data, the entire photometry from 0.85 mm to 6 cm is fitted by a two-component model that determines the ubiquitous presence of free-free emission entangled with the dust emission. The flux density of the free-free emission is found to scale with the accretion rate but is independent of the outer disk morphology depicted by ALMA. The dust emission at 2 cm is still appreciable, and offers the possibility to extract an unprecedented large set of dust spectral indices in the centimeter regime. A pronounced change between the median millimeter indices (2.3) and centimeter indices (2.8) suggests that a large portion of the disk emission is optically thick up to 3 mm. The comparison of both indices and fluxes with the ALMA disk extent indicates that this portion can be as large as 40 au, and suggests that the grain population within this disk region that emits the observed centimeter emission is similar in disks with different size and morphology. All these results await confirmation and dedicated dust modeling once facilities like ngVLA or SKA-mid are able to resolve the centimeter emission from planet-forming disks and disentangle the various components.

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The emergence of the Md-Macc correlation in the MHD wind scenario

There is still much uncertainty around the mechanism that rules the accretion of proto-planetary disks. In the last years, Magnetohydrondynamic (MHD) wind-driven accretion has been proposed as a valid alternative to the more conventional viscous accretion. In particular, winds have been shown to reproduce the observed correlation between the mass of the disk Md and the mass accretion rate onto the central star Macc, but this has been done only for specific conditions. It is not clear whether this implies fine tuning or if it is a general result. We investigate under which conditions the observed correlation between the mass of the disk Md and the mass accretion rate onto the central star Macc can be obtained. We find that, in the absence of a correlation between the initial mass M0 and the initial accretion timescale tacc,0, the slope of the Md-Macc correlation depends on the value of the spread of the initial conditions of masses and lifetimes of disks. Then, we clarify the conditions under which a disk population can be fitted with a single power-law. Moreover, we derive an analytical expression for the spread of log(Md/Macc) valid when the spread of tacc is taken to be constant. In the presence of a correlation between M0 and tacc,0, we derive an analytical expression for the slope of the Md-Macc correlation in the initial conditions of disks and at late times. We conclude that MHD winds can predict the observed values of the slope and the spread of the Md-Macc correlation under a broad range of initial conditions. This is a fundamental expansion of previous works on the MHD paradigm, exploring the establishment of this fundamental correlation beyond specific initial conditions.

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Retrieval of Thermally-Resolved Water Vapor Distributions in Disks Observed with JWST-MIRI

The mid-infrared water vapor emission spectrum provides a novel way to characterize the delivery of icy pebbles towards the innermost ($<5$ au) regions of planet-forming disks. Recently, JWST MIRI-MRS showed that compact disks exhibit an excess of low-energy water vapor emission relative to extended multi-gapped disks, suggesting that icy pebble drift is more efficient in the former. We carry out detailed emission line modeling to retrieve the excitation conditions of rotational water vapor emission in a sample of four compact and three extended disks within the JDISC Survey. We present two-temperature H$_2$O slab model retrievals and, for the first time, constrain the spatial distribution of water vapor by fitting parametric radial temperature and column density profiles. Such models statistically outperform the two-temperature slab fits. We find a correlation between the observable hot water vapor mass and stellar mass accretion rate, as well as an anti-correlation between cold water vapor mass and sub-mm dust disk radius, confirming previously reported water line flux trends. We find that the mid-IR spectrum traces H$_2$O with temperatures down to 180-300 K, but the coldest 150-170 K gas remains undetected. Furthermore the H$_2$O temperature profiles are generally steeper and cooler than the expected `super-heated' dust temperature in passive irradiated disks. The column density profiles are used to estimate icy pebble mass fluxes, which suggest that compact and extended disks may produce markedly distinct inner-disk exoplanet populations if local feeding mechanisms dominate their assembly.

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The evolution of the $M_{\mathrm{d}}-M_{\star}$ and $\dot M-M_{\star}$ correlations traces protoplanetary disc dispersal

(Abridged) Observational surveys of entire star-forming regions have provided evidence of power-law correlations between the disc properties and the stellar mass, especially the disc mass (${M_d \propto M_*}^{λ_m}$) and the accretion rate ($\dot M \propto {M_*}^{λ_{acc}}$). Whether the secular disc evolution affects said correlations is still debated: while the purely viscous scenario has been probed, other mechanisms could impact differently. We study the evolution of the slopes $λ_m$ and $λ_{acc}$ in the wind-driven and hybrid case and compare it to the viscous prediction, using a combination of analytical calculations and numerical simulations (performed with the 1D population synthesis code Diskpop, that we also present and release). Assuming $M_d(0) \propto {M_*}^{λ_{m, 0}}$ and $\dot M(0) \propto {M_*}^{λ_{acc, 0}}$ as initial conditions, we find that viscous and hybrid accretion preserve the shape of the correlations and evolve their slope; on the other hand, MHD winds change the shape of the correlations, bending them according to the scaling of the accretion timescale with the stellar mass. We also show how a spread in the initial conditions conceals this behaviour. We then analyse the impact of disc dispersal, and find that the currently available sample sizes ($\sim 30$ discs at 5 Myr) introduce stochastic oscillations in the slopes evolution, which dominate over the physical signatures. Increasing the sample size could mitigate this issue: $\sim 140$ discs at 5 Myr, corresponding to the complete Upper Sco sample, would give small enough error bars to use the evolution of the slopes as a proxy for the driving mechanism of disc evolution. Finally, we discuss how the observational claim of steepening slopes necessarily leads to an initially steeper $M_d - M_*$ correlation with respect to $\dot M - M_*$.

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A question of personalities: evolution of viscous and wind-driven protoplanetary discs in the presence of dead zones

Whether the angular momentum of protoplanetary discs is redistributed by viscosity or extracted by magnetised winds is a long-standing question. Demographic indicators, such as gas disc sizes and stellar accretion rates, have been proposed as ways of distinguishing between these two mechanisms. In this paper, we implement one-dimensional gas simulations to study the evolution of "hybrid" protoplanetary discs simultaneously driven by viscosity and magnetised winds, with dead zones present. We explore how the variations of disc properties, including initial disc sizes, dead zone sizes and angular momentum transport efficiency, affect stellar accretion rates, disc surface density profiles, disc sizes, disc lifetimes, and cumulative mass loss by different processes. Our models show that the expansion of the gas disc size can be sustained when the majority of angular momentum is removed by the magnetised wind for individual protoplanetary discs. However, when we can only observe discs via demographic screenshots, the variation of disc sizes with time is possibly diminished by the disc "personalities", by which we mean the variations of initial disc properties among different discs. Our "hybrid" models re-assess association of the two demographic indicators with mechanisms responsible for angular momentum transport and suggest additional diagnostics are required to assist the differentiation.

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Population Synthesis Models Indicate a Need for Early and Ubiquitous Disk Substructures

Large mm surveys of star forming regions enable the study of entire populations of planet-forming disks and reveal correlations between their observable properties. Population studies of disks have shown that the correlation between disk size and millimeter flux could be explained either through disks with strong substructure, or alternatively by the effects of radial inward drift of growing dust particles. This study aims to constrain the parameters and initial conditions of planet-forming disks and address the question of the need for the presence of substructures in disks and, if needed, their predicted characteristics, based on the large samples of disk sizes, millimeter fluxes, and spectral indices available. We performed a population synthesis of the continuum emission of disks, exploiting a two-population model (two-pop-py), considering the influence of viscous evolution, dust growth, fragmentation, and transport varying the initial conditions of the disk and substructure to find the best match to the observed distributions. We show that the observed distributions of spectral indices, sizes, and luminosities together can be best reproduced by disks with significant substructure, namely a perturbation strong enough to be able to trap particles, and that is formed early in the evolution of the disk, that is within 0.4Myr. Agreement is reached by relatively high initial disk masses ($10^{-2.3}M_{\star}\leqslant M_{disk}\leqslant10^{-0.5}M_{\star}$) and moderate levels of turbulence ($10^{-3.5}\leqslantα\leqslant 10^{-2.5}$). Other disk parameters play a weaker role. Only opacities with high absorption efficiency can reproduce the observed spectral indices. Our results extend to the whole population that substructure is likely ubiquitous, so far assessed only in individual disks and implies that most "smooth" disks hide unresolved substructure.

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Accuracy of ALMA estimates of young disk radii and masses. Predicted observations from numerical simulations

Protoplanetary disks, which are the natural consequence of the gravitational collapse of the dense molecular cloud cores, host the formation of the known planetary systems in our universe. Substantial efforts have been dedicated to investigating the properties of these disks in the more mature Class II stage, either via numerical simulations of disk evolution from a limited range of initial conditions or observations of their dust continuum and line emission from specific molecular tracers. The results coming from these two standpoints have been used to draw comparisons. However, few studies have investigated the main limitations at work when measuring the embedded Class 0/I disk properties from observations, especially in a statistical fashion. In this study, we provide a first attempt to compare the accuracy of some critical disk parameters in Class 0/I systems, as derived on real ALMA observational data, with the corresponding physical parameters that can be directly defined by theoreticians and modellers in numerical simulations. The approach we follow here is to provide full post-processing of the numerical simulations and apply it to the synthetic observations the same techniques used by observers to derive the physical parameters. We performed 3D Monte Carlo radiative transfer and mock interferometric observations of the disk populations formed in a magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulation model of disk formation through the collapse of massive clumps with the tools \textsc{Radmc-3d} and \textsc{Casa}, respectively, to obtain their synthetic observations. With these observations, we re-employed the techniques commonly used in disk modelling from their continuum emissions to infer the properties that would most likely be obtained with real interferometers. We then demonstrated how these properties may vary with respect to the gas kinematics analyses and dust continuum modelling.

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Dual-Band Observations of the Asymmetric Ring around CIDA 9A: Dead or Alive?

While the most exciting explanation of the observed dust asymmetries in protoplanetary disks is the presence of protoplanets, other mechanisms can also form the dust features. This paper presents dual-wavelength Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) observations of a large asymmetric dusty ring around the M-type star CIDA 9A. We detect a dust asymmetry in both 1.3 mm and 3.1 mm data. To characterize the asymmetric structure, a parametric model is used to fit the observed visibilities. We report a tentative azimuthal shift of the dust emission peaks between the observations at the two wavelengths. This shift is consistent with a dust trap caused by a vortex, which may be formed by an embedded protoplanet or other hydrodynamical instabilities, such as a dead zone. Deep high-spatial observations of dust and molecular gas are needed to constrain the mechanisms that formed the observed millimeter cavity and dust asymmetry in the protoplanetary disk around CIDA 9A.

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The population of young low-mass stars in Trumpler 14

Massive star-forming regions are thought to be the most common birth environments in the Galaxy and the only birth places of very massive stars. Their presence in the stellar cluster alters the conditions within the cluster impacting at the same time the evolution of other cluster members. In principle, copious amounts of ultraviolet radiation produced by massive stars can remove material from outer parts of the protoplanetary disks around low- and intermediate-mass stars in the process of external photoevaporation, effectively reducing the planet-formation capabilities of those disks. Here, we present deep VLT/MUSE observations of low-mass stars in Trumpler 14, one of the most massive, young, and compact clusters in the Carina Nebula Complex. We provide spectral and stellar properties of 717 sources and based on the distribution of stellar ages derive the cluster age of $\sim$1~Myr. The majority of the stars in our sample have masses $\leqslant$1~$M_\odot$, what makes our spectroscopic catalogue the most deep to date in term of masses, and proves that detailed investigations of low-mass stars are possible in the massive but distant regions. Spectroscopic studies of low-mass members of the whole Carina Nebula Complex are missing. Our work provides an important step forward towards filling this gap and set the stage for follow-up investigation of accretion properties in Trumpler 14.

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The time evolution of $M_{\mathrm{d}}/\dot M$ in protoplanetary discs as a way to disentangle between viscosity and MHD winds

As the classic viscous paradigm for protoplanetary disk accretion is challenged by the observational evidence of low turbulence, the alternative scenario of MHD disk winds is being explored as potentially able to reproduce the same observed features traditionally explained with viscosity. Although the two models lead to different disk properties, none of them has been ruled out by observations - mainly due to instrumental limitations. In this work, we present a viable method to distinguish between the viscous and MHD framework based on the different evolution of the distribution in the disk mass ($M_{\mathrm{d}}$) - accretion rate ($\dot M$) plane of a disk population. With a synergy of analytical calculations and 1D numerical simulations, performed with the population synthesis code \texttt{Diskpop}, we find that both mechanisms predict the spread of the observed ratio $M_{\mathrm{d}}/\dot M$ in a disk population to decrease over time; however, this effect is much less pronounced in MHD-dominated populations as compared to purely viscous populations. Furthermore, we demonstrate that this difference is detectable with the current observational facilities: we show that convolving the intrinsic spread with the observational uncertainties does not affect our result, as the observed spread in the MHD case remains significantly larger than in the viscous scenario. While the most recent data available show a better agreement with the wind model, ongoing and future efforts to obtain direct gas mass measurements with ALMA and ngVLA will cause a reassessment of this comparison in the near future.

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JWST reveals excess cool water near the snowline in compact disks, consistent with pebble drift

Previous analyses of mid-infrared water spectra from young protoplanetary disks observed with the Spitzer-IRS found an anti-correlation between water luminosity and the millimeter dust disk radius observed with ALMA. This trend was suggested to be evidence for a fundamental process of inner disk water enrichment, used to explain properties of the Solar System 40 years ago, in which icy pebbles drift inward from the outer disk and sublimate after crossing the snowline. Previous analyses of IRS water spectra, however, were uncertain due to the low spectral resolution that blended lines together. We present new JWST-MIRI spectra of four disks, two compact and two large with multiple radial gaps, selected to test the scenario that water vapor inside the snowline is regulated by pebble drift. The higher spectral resolving power of MIRI-MRS now yields water spectra that separate individual lines, tracing upper level energies from 900 K to 10,000 K. These spectra clearly reveal excess emission in the low-energy lines in compact disks, compared to the large disks, demonstrating an enhanced cool component with $T \approx$ 170-400 K and equivalent emitting radius $R_{\rm{eq}}\approx$ 1-10 au. We interpret the cool water emission as ice sublimation and vapor diffusion near the snowline, suggesting that there is indeed a higher inwards mass flux of icy pebbles in compact disks. Observation of this process opens up multiple exciting prospects to study planet formation chemistry in inner disks with JWST.

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Radio multiwavelength analysis of the compact disk CX Tau: Presence of strong free-free variability or anomalous microwave emission

Protoplanetary disks emit radiation across a broad range of wavelengths, requiring a multiwavelength approach to fully understand their physical mechanisms and how they form planets. Observations at sub-millimeter to centimeter wavelengths can provide insights into the thermal emission from dust, free-free emission from ionized gas, and possible gyro-synchrotron emission from the stellar magnetosphere. This work is focused on CX Tau, a ${\sim}0.4\,M_\odot$ star with an extended gas emission and a compact and apparently structureless dust disk, with an average millimeter flux when compared to Class II sources in Taurus. We present observations from the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) across four bands (between 9.0 mm and 6.0 cm) and combine them with archival data from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), the Submillimeter Array (SMA) and the Plateau de Bure Interferometer (PdBI). This multiwavelength approach allows us to separate the dust continuum from other emissions. After isolating the dust thermal emission, we derived an upper limit of the dust disk extent at 1.3 cm which is consistent with theoretical predictions of a radial drift-dominated disk. Centimeter data show a peculiar behavior: deep observations at 6.0 cm did not detect the source, while at 1.3 cm the flux density is anomalously higher than adjacent bands. Intraband spectral indices suggest a dominant contribution from free-free emission, whereas gyro-synchrotron emission is excluded. To explain these observations, we propose a strong variability among the free-free emission with timescales shorter than a month. Another possible interpretation is the presence of anomalous microwave emission from spinning dust grains.

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How large is a disk -- what do protoplanetary disk gas sizes really mean?

It remains unclear what mechanism is driving the evolution of protoplanetary disks. Direct detection of the main candidates, either turbulence driven by magnetorotational instability or magnetohydrodynamical disk winds, has proven difficult, leaving the time evolution of the disk size as one of the most promising observables able to differentiate between these two mechanisms. But to do so successfully, we need to understand what the observed gas disk size actually traces. We studied the relation between $R_{\rm CO,\ 90\%}$, the radius that encloses 90% of the $^{12}$CO flux, and $R_c$, the radius that encodes the physical disk size, in order to provide simple prescriptions for conversions between these two sizes. For an extensive grid of thermochemical models we calculate $R_{\rm CO,\ 90\%}$ from synthetic observations and relate properties measured at this radius, such as the gas column density, to bulk disk properties, such as $R_c$ and the disk mass $M_{\rm disk}$. We found an empirical correlation between the gas column density at $R_{\rm CO,\ 90\%}$ and disk mass: $N_{\rm gas}(R_{\rm CO,\ 90\%}) \approx 3.73\times10^{21}(M_{\rm disk}/\mathrm{M}_{\odot})^{0.34}\ \mathrm{cm}^{-2}$. Using this correlation we derive an analytical prescription of $R_{\rm CO,\ 90\%}$ that only depends on $R_c$ and $M_{\rm disk}$. We derive $R_c$ for disks in Lupus, Upper Sco, Taurus and DSHARP, finding that disks in the older Upper Sco region are significantly smaller ($\langle R_c \rangle$ = 4.8 au) than disks in the younger Lupus and Taurus regions ($\langle R_c \rangle$ = 19.8 and 20.9 au, respectively). This temporal decrease in $R_c$ goes against predictions of both viscous and wind-driven evolution, but could be a sign of significant external photoevaporation having truncated disks in Upper Sco.

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The Effect of Dust Evolution and Traps on Inner Disk Water Enrichment

Substructures in protoplanetary disks can act as dust traps that shape the radial distribution of pebbles. By blocking the passage of pebbles, the presence of gaps in disks may have a profound effect on pebble delivery into the inner disk, crucial for the formation of inner planets via pebble accretion. This process can also affect the delivery of volatiles (such as H$_2$O) and their abundance within the water snow line region (within a few au). In this study, we aim to understand what effect the presence of gaps in the outer gas disk may have on water vapor enrichment in the inner disk. Building on previous work, we employ a volatile-inclusive multi-Myr disk evolution model that considers an evolving ice-bearing drifting dust population, sensitive to dust-traps, which loses its icy content to sublimation upon reaching the snow line. We find that vapor abundance in the inner disk is strongly affected by fragmentation velocity (v$_{\rm f}$) and turbulence, which control how intense vapor enrichment from pebble delivery is, if present, and how long it may last. Generally, for disks with low to moderate turbulence ($α$ $\le$ 1 $\times$ 10$^{-3}$) and for a range of v$_{\rm f}$, radial location, and gap depth (especially that of the innermost gaps), can significantly alter enrichment. Shallow inner gaps may continuously leak material from beyond it, despite the presence of additional deep outer gaps. We finally find that the for realistic v$_{\rm f}$ ($\le$ 10 m s$^{-1}$), presence of gaps is more important than planetesimal formation beyond the snow line in regulating pebble and volatile delivery into the inner disk.

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The Mass Accretion Rate and Stellar Properties in Class I Protostars

Stars collect most of their mass during the protostellar stage, yet the accretion luminosity and stellar parameters, which are needed to compute the mass accretion rate, are poorly constrained for the youngest sources. The aim of this work is to fill this gap, computing the stellar properties and the accretion rates for a large sample of Class I protostars located in nearby (< 500 pc) star-forming regions and analysing their interplay. We used a self-consistent method to provide accretion and stellar parameters using SED modeling and veiling information from near-IR observations, when possible. We calculated accretion and stellar properties for the first time for 50 young stars. We focused our analysis on the 39 confirmed protostars, finding that their mass accretion rate varies between about 10^(-8) and about 10^(-4) Msun/yr in a stellar mass range between about 0.1 and 3 Msun. We find systematically larger mass accretion rates for our Class I sample than in Class II objects. Although the mass accretion rate we found is high, it still suggests that either stars collect most of its mass before Class I stage, or eruptive accretion is needed during the overall protostellar phase. Indeed, our results suggest that for a large number of protostars the disk can be unstable, which can result in accretion bursts and disk fragmentation in the past or in the future.

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