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Leonardo Testi

Publications and source records attributed to Leonardo Testi.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

Spectral classification of young stars using conditional invertible neural networks II. Application to Trumpler 14 in Carina

We introduce an updated version of our deep learning tool that predicts stellar parameters from the optical spectra of young low-mass stars with intermediate spectral resolution. We adopt a conditional invertible neural network (cINN) architecture to infer the posterior distribution of stellar parameters and train our cINN on two Phoenix stellar atmosphere model libraries (Settl and Dusty). Compared to the cINNs presented in our first study, the updated cINN considers the influence of the relative flux error on the parameter estimation and predicts an additional fourth parameter, veiling. We test the performance of cINN on synthetic test models to quantify the intrinsic error of the cINN as a function of relative flux error and on 36 class III template stars to validate the performance on real spectra. Using our cINN, we estimate the stellar parameters of young stars in Trumpler 14 (Tr14) in the Carina Nebula Complex, observed with VLT-MUSE, and compare them with those derived using the classical template fitting method. We provide Teff, log g, Av, and veiling values measured by our cINN as well as stellar ages and masses derived from the HR diagram. Our parameter estimates generally agree well with those measured by template fitting. However, for K- and G-type stars, the Teff derived from template fitting is, on average, 2-3 subclasses hotter than the cINN estimates, while the corresponding veiling values from template fitting appear to be underestimated compared to the cINN predictions. We obtain an average age of 0.7(+3.2)(-0.6) Myr for the Tr14 stars. By examining the impact of veiling on the equivalent width-based classification, we demonstrate that the main cause of temperature overestimation for K- and G-type stars in the previous study is that veiling and effective temperature are not considered simultaneously in their process.

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Introducing the Rhea simulations of Milky-Way-like galaxies I: Effect of gravitational potential on morphology and star formation

The Milky Way is a complex ecosystem, for which we can obtain detailed observations probing the physical mechanisms determining the interstellar medium. For a detailed comparison with observations, and to provide theories for missing observables, we need to model the Milky Way as closely as possible. However, details of the Galactic structure are not fully defined by observations, raising the need for more generalized models. With the Rhea simulations we present a set of Milky Way like simulations, containing detailed physics of the interstellar medium, as well as star formation and stellar feedback. We conduct two simulations that differ in the gravitational potential: one fitted to several structural details derived from observations, the other just reproducing the most basic quantities. We find little difference in the overall morphology except for the bar region, which funnels gas towards the Galactic inner region and therefore prevents quenching in the center. Despite differences with galacto-centric radius, the global star formation rate is almost identical in both setups. A spiral arm potential does not influence properties of groups of formed stars. A bar potential, however, lowers size and formation time of those groups. We therefore conclude for a spiral arm potential to have little influence on star formation in the Galaxy, except for producing long-lived spiral structures instead of transient ones. A Galactic bar potential has noticeable influence on star formation mainly within the innermost 2.5kpc.

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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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Testing kinematic distances under a realistic Galactic potential

Obtaining reliable distance estimates to gas clouds within the Milky Way is challenging in the absence of certain tracers. The kinematic distance approach has been used as an alternative, derived from the assumption of circular trajectories around the Galactic centre. Consequently, significant errors are expected in regions where gas flow deviates from purely circular motions. We aim to quantify the systematic errors that arise from the kinematic distance method in the presence of a Galactic potential that is non-axisymmetric. We investigate how these errors differ in certain regions of the Galaxy and how they relate to the underlying dynamics. We perform 2D hydrodynamical simulation of the gas disk with the moving-mesh code Arepo, adding the capability of using an external potential provided by the Agama library for galactic dynamics. We introduce a new analytic potential of the Milky Way, taking elements from existing models and adjusting parameters to match recent observational constraints. In line with results of previous studies, we report significant errors in the kinematic distance estimate for gas close to the Sun, along sight lines towards the Galactic centre and anti-centre, and associated with the Galactic bar. Kinematic distance errors are low within the spiral arms as gas resides close to local potential minima and the resulting LOS velocity is similar to what is expected for an axisymmetric potential. Interarm regions exhibit large deviations at any given Galactic radius. This is caused by the gas being sped up or slowed down as it travels into or out of spiral arms. In addition, we identify 'zones of avoidance' in the lv-diagram, where the kinematic distance method is particularly unreliable and should only be used with caution, and we find a power law relation between the kinematic distance error and the deviation of the projected LOS velocity from circular motion.

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Constraints on the physical origin of large cavities in transition disks from multi-wavelength dust continuum emission

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 spatial distribution of gas and solids in each mechanism is not the same. In this work, we analyze the multi-wavelength interferometric visibilities of dust continuum observations obtained with ALMA and VLA for six transition disks: CQTau, UXTau A, LkCa15, RXJ1615, SR24S, and DMTau, and calculate brightness radial profiles, where diverse emission morphology is revealed at different wavelengths. The multi-wavelength data is used to model the spectral energy distribution and compute constraints on the radial profile of the dust surface density, maximum grain size, and dust temperature in each disk. They are compared with the observational signatures expected from various physical mechanisms responsible for disk cavities. The observational signatures suggest that the cavities observed in the disks around UXTau A, LkCa15, and RXJ1615 could potentially originate from a dust trap created by a companion. Conversely, in the disks around CQTau, SR24S, DMTau, the origin of the cavity remains unclear, although it is compatible with a pressure bump and grain growth within the cavity.

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FAUST XIX. D$_2$CO in the outflow cavities of NGC\,1333 IRAS\,4A: recovering the physical structure of its original prestellar core

Molecular deuteration is a powerful diagnostic tool for probing the physical conditions and chemical processes in astrophysical environments. In this work, we focus on formaldehyde deuteration in the protobinary system NGC\,1333 IRAS\,4A, located in the Perseus molecular cloud. Using high-resolution ($\sim$\,100\,au) ALMA observations, we investigate the [D$_2$CO]/[HDCO] ratio along the cavity walls of the outflows emanating from IRAS\,4A1. Our analysis reveals a consistent decrease in the deuteration ratio (from $\sim$\,60-20\% to $\sim$\,10\%) with increasing distance from the protostar (from $\sim$\,2000\,au to $\sim$\,4000\,au). Given the large measured [D$_2$CO]/[HDCO], both HDCO and D$_2$CO are likely injected by the shocks along the cavity walls into the gas-phase from the dust mantles, formed in the previous prestellar phase. We propose that the observed [D$_2$CO]/[HDCO] decrease is due to the density profile of the prestellar core from which NGC\,1333 IRAS\,4A was born. When considering the chemical processes at the base of formaldehyde deuteration, the IRAS\,4A's prestellar precursor had a predominantly flat density profile within 3000\,au and a decrease of density beyond this radius.

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Resolved ALMA observations of water in the inner astronomical units of the HL Tau disk

The water molecule is a key ingredient in the formation of planetary systems, with the water snowline being a favourable location for the growth of massive planetary cores. Here we present Atacama Large Millimeter/ submillimeter Array data of the ringed protoplanetary disk orbiting the young star HL Tauri that show centrally peaked, bright emission arising from three distinct transitions of the main water isotopologue. The spatially and spectrally resolved water content probes gas in a thermal range down to the water sublimation temperature. Our analysis implies a stringent lower limit of 3.7 Earth oceans of water vapour available within the inner 17 astronomical units of the system. We show that our observations are limited to probing the water content in the atmosphere of the disk, due to the high dust column density and absorption, and indicate that the main water isotopologue is the best tracer to spatially resolve water vapour in protoplanetary disks.

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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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Weighing protoplanetary discs with kinematics: physical model, method and benchmark

The mass of protoplanetary discs sets the amount of material available for planet formation, determines the level of coupling between gas and dust, and possibly sets gravitational instabilities. Measuring mass of discs is challenging, since it is not possible to directly detect H$_2$, and CO-based estimates remain poorly constrained. An alternative method that does not rely on tracers-to-H$_2$ ratios has recently been proposed to dynamically measure the disc mass altogether with the star mass and the disc critical radius by looking at deviations from Keplerian rotation induced by the self-gravity of the disc. So far, this method has been applied to weigh three protoplanetary discs: Elias 2-27, IM Lup and GM Aurigae. We provide here a numerical benchmark of the method by simulating isothermal self-gravitating discs with a range of masses from 0.01 to $0.2 \,M_{\odot}$ with the phantom code and post-process them with radiative transfer (mcfost) to obtain synthetic observations. We find that dynamical weighing allows to retrieve the expected value of disc masses as long as the disc-to-star mass ratio is larger than $M_d/M_\star=0.05$. The estimated uncertainty for the disc mass measurement is $\sim 25\%$.

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Multiple chemical tracers finally unveil the intricate NGC\,1333 IRAS\,4A outflow system. FAUST XVI

The exploration of outflows in protobinary systems presents a challenging yet crucial endeavour, offering valuable insights into the dynamic interplay between protostars and their evolution. In this study, we examine the morphology and dynamics of jets and outflows within the IRAS\,4A protobinary system. This analysis is based on ALMA observations of SiO(5--4), H$_2$CO(3$_{0,3}$--2$_{0,3}$), and HDCO(4$_{1,4}$--3$_{1,3}$) with a spatial resolution of $\sim$150\,au. Leveraging an astrochemical approach involving the use of diverse tracers beyond traditional ones has enabled the identification of novel features and a comprehensive understanding of the broader outflow dynamics. Our analysis reveals the presence of two jets in the redshifted emission, emanating from IRAS\,4A1 and IRAS\,4A2, respectively. Furthermore, we identify four distinct outflows in the region for the first time, with each protostar, 4A1 and 4A2, contributing to two of them. We characterise the morphology and orientation of each outflow, challenging previous suggestions of bends in their trajectories. The outflow cavities of IRAS\,4A1 exhibit extensions of 10$''$ and 13$''$ with position angles (PA) of 0$^{\circ}$ and -12$^{\circ}$, respectively, while those of IRAS\,4A2 are more extended, spanning 18$''$ and 25$''$ with PAs of 29$^{\circ}$ and 26$^{\circ}$. We propose that the misalignment of the cavities is due to a jet precession in each protostar, a notion supported by the observation that the more extended cavities of the same source exhibit lower velocities, indicating they may stem from older ejection events.

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Rotation curves in protoplanetary disks with thermal stratification

In recent years the gas kinematics probed by molecular lines detected with ALMA has opened a new window to study protoplanetary disks. High spatial and spectral resolution observations have revealed the complexity of protoplanetary disk structure and correctly interpreting these data allow us to gain a better comprehension of the planet formation process. We investigate the impact of thermal stratification on the azimuthal velocity of protoplanetary disks. High resolution gas observations are showing velocity differences between CO isotopologues, which cannot be adequately explained with vertically isothermal models. The aim of this work is to determine whether a stratified model can explain this discrepancy. We analytically solve the hydrostatic equilibrium for a stratified disk and we derive the azimuthal velocity. We test the model with SPH numerical simulations and then we use it to fit for star mass, disk mass and scale radius of the sources in the MAPS sample. In particular, we use 12CO and 13CO datacubes.

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A deep-learning approach to the 3D reconstruction of dust density and temperature in star-forming regions

Aims: We introduce a new deep-learning approach for the reconstruction of 3D dust density and temperature distributions from multi-wavelength dust emission observations on the scale of individual star-forming cloud cores (<0.2pc). Methods: We construct a training data set by processing cloud cores from the Cloud Factory simulations with the POLARIS radiative transfer code to produce synthetic dust emission observations at 23 wavelengths between 12 and 1300 $μ$m. We simplify the task by reconstructing the cloud structure along individual lines of sight and train a conditional invertible neural network (cINN) for this purpose. The cINN belongs to the group of normalising flow methods and is able to predict full posterior distributions for the target dust properties. We test different cINN setups, ranging from a scenario that includes all 23 wavelengths down to a more realistically limited case with observations at only seven wavelengths. We evaluate the predictive performance of these models on synthetic test data. Results: We report an excellent reconstruction performance for the 23-wavelengths cINN model, achieving median absolute relative errors of about 1.8% in $\log(n/m^{-3})$ and 1% in $\log(T_{dust}/K)$, respectively. We identify trends towards overestimation at the low end of the density range and towards underestimation at the high end of both the density and temperature values, which may be related to a bias in the training data. Limiting our coverage to a combination of only seven wavelengths, we still find a satisfactory performance with average absolute relative errors of about 3.3% and 2.5% in $\log(n/m^{-3})$ and $\log(T_{dust}/K)$. Conclusions: This proof-of-concept study shows that the cINN-based approach for 3D reconstruction of dust density and temperature is very promising and even compatible with a more realistically constrained wavelength coverage.

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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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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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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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