arXiv subjects

N. J. Turner

Publications and source records attributed to N. J. Turner.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2023

On wave interference in planet migration: dead zone torques modified by active zone forcing

We investigate planetary migration in the dead zone of a protoplanetary disk where there are a set of spiral waves propagating inward due to the turbulence in the active zone and the Rossby wave instability (RWI), which occurs at the transition between the dead and active zones. We perform global 3D unstratified magnetohydrodynamical (MHD) simulations of a gaseous disk with the FARGO3D code, using weak gradients in the static resistivity profiles that trigger the formation of a vortex at the outer edge of the dead zone. We find that once the Rossby vortex develops, spiral waves in the dead zone emerge and interact with embedded migrating planets by wave interference, which notably changes their migration. The inward migration becomes faster depending on the mass of the planet, due mostly to the constructive (destructive) interference between the outer (inner) spiral arm of the planet and, the destruction of the dynamics of the horseshoe region by means of the set of background spiral waves propagating inward. The constructive wave interference produces a more negative Lindblad differential torque which inevitably leads to an inward migration. Lastly, for massive planets embedded in the dead zone, we find that the spiral waves can create an asymmetric wider and depeer gap than in the case of $α$-disks, and can prevent the formation of vortices at the outer edge of the gap. The latter could generate a faster or slower migration compared to the standard type-II migration.

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arXiv2021

Accreting protoplanets: Spectral signatures and magnitude of gas and dust extinction at H alpha

Accreting planets have been seen at Ha (H alpha), but targeted searches have not been fruitful. For planets, accretion tracers should come from the shock itself, exposing them to extinction by the accreting material. High-resolution (R>5e4) spectrographs at Ha should soon allow studying how the incoming material shapes the line profile. We calculate how much the gas and dust accreting onto a planet reduce the Ha flux from the shock at the planetary surface and how they affect line shapes. We also study the absorption-modified relationship between Ha luminosity and Mdot. We compute the high-resolution radiative transfer of the Ha line using a 1D velocity-density-temperature structure for the inflowing matter in three representative accretion geometries: spherical symmetry, polar inflow, and magnetospheric accretion. For each, we explore wide ranges of Mdot and planet mass M. We use detailed gas opacities and estimate dust opacities. At Mdot<3e-6 MJ/yr, gas extinction is negligible for spherical or polar inflow and at most A_Ha<0.5 mag for magnetospheric accretion. Up to Mdot~3e-4 MJ/yr, the gas has A_Ha<4 mag. This decreases with M. We estimate realistic dust opacities at Ha as ~0.01-10 cm^2/g, i.e., 10-1e4 times lower than in the ISM. Extinction flattens the L_Ha-Mdot relationship, which becomes non-monotonic with a maximum L_Ha~1e-4 LSun near Mdot~1e-4 MJ/yr for M~10 MJ. In magnetospheric accretion, the gas can introduce features in line profiles, but the velocity gradient smears them out in other geometries. For most of parameter space, extinction by the accreting matter should be negligible, simplifying interpretation of observations, especially for planets in gaps. At high Mdot, strong absorption reduces the Ha flux, and some measurements can be interpreted as two Mdot values. Line profiles at R~1e5 can provide complex constraints on the accretion flow's thermal-dynamical structure.

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arXiv2017

The Taurus Boundary of Stellar/Substellar (TBOSS) Survey II. Disk Masses from ALMA Continuum Observations

We report 885$μ$m ALMA continuum flux densities for 24 Taurus members spanning the stellar/substellar boundary, with spectral types from M4 to M7.75. Of the 24 systems, 22 are detected at levels ranging from 1.0-55.6 mJy. The two non-detections are transition disks, though other transition disks in the sample are detected. Converting ALMA continuum measurements to masses using standard scaling laws and radiative transfer modeling yields dust mass estimates ranging from $\sim$0.3-20M$_{\oplus}$. The dust mass shows a declining trend with central object mass when combined with results from submillimeter surveys of more massive Taurus members. The substellar disks appear as part of a continuous sequence and not a distinct population. Compared to older Upper Sco members with similar masses across the substellar limit, the Taurus disks are brighter and more massive. Both Taurus and Upper Sco populations are consistent with an approximately linear relationship in $M_{dust}$ to $M_{star}$, although derived power-law slopes depend strongly upon choices of stellar evolutionary model and dust temperature relation. The median disk around early M-stars in Taurus contains a comparable amount of mass in small solids as the average amount of heavy elements in Kepler planetary systems on short-period orbits around M-dwarf stars, with an order of magnitude spread in disk dust mass about the median value. Assuming a gas:dust ratio of 100:1, only a small number of low-mass stars and brown dwarfs have a total disk mass amenable to giant planet formation, consistent with the low frequency of giant planets orbiting M-dwarfs.

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arXiv2017

A near-infrared interferometric survey of debris-disk stars. VI. Extending the exozodiacal light survey with CHARA/JouFLU

We report the results of high-angular-resolution observations that search for exozodiacal light in a sample of main sequence stars and sub-giants. Using the "jouvence" of the fiber linked unit for optical recombination (JouFLU) at the center for high angular resolution astronomy (CHARA) telescope array, we have observed a total of 44 stars. Out of the 44 stars, 33 are new stars added to the initial, previously published survey of 42 stars performed at CHARA with the fiber linked unit for optical recombiation (FLUOR). Since the start of the survey extension, we have detected a K-band circumstellar excess for six new stars at the ~ 1\% level or higher, four of which are known or candidate binaries, and two for which the excess could be attributed to exozodiacal dust. We have also performed follow-up observations of 11 of the stars observed in the previously published survey and found generally consistent results. We do however detect a significantly larger excess on three of these follow-up targets: Altair, $\upsilon$ And and $κ$ CrB. Interestingly, the last two are known exoplanet host stars. We perform a statistical analysis of the JouFLU and FLUOR samples combined, which yields an overall exozodi detection rate of $21.7^{+5.7}_{-4.1}\%$. We also find that the K-band excess in FGK-type stars correlates with the existence of an outer reservoir of cold ($\lesssim 100\,$K) dust at the $99\%$ confidence level, while the same cannot be said for A-type stars.

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arXiv2016

3D Radiation Non-ideal Magnetohydrodynamical Simulations Of The Inner Rim In Protoplanetary Disks

Many planets orbit within an AU of their stars, raising questions about their origins. Particularly puzzling are the planets found near the silicate sublimation front. We investigate conditions near the front in the protostellar disk around a young intermediate-mass star, using the first global 3-D radiation non-ideal MHD simulations in this context. We treat the starlight heating; the silicate grains sublimation and deposition at the local, time-varying temperature and density; temperature-dependent Ohmic dissipation; and various initial magnetic fields. The results show magnetorotational turbulence around the sublimation front at 0.5 AU. The disk interior to 0.8 AU is turbulent, with velocities exceeding 10% of the sound speed. Beyond 0.8 AU is the dead zone, cooler than 1000 K and with turbulence orders of magnitude weaker. A local pressure maximum just inside the dead zone concentrates solid particles, favoring their growth. Over many orbits, a vortex develops at the dead zones inner edge, increasing the disks thickness locally by around 10%. We synthetically observe the results using Monte Carlo transfer calculations, finding the sublimation front is near-infrared bright. The models with net vertical magnetic fields develop extended, magnetically-supported atmospheres that reprocess extra starlight, raising the near-infrared flux 20%.The vortex throws a nonaxisymmetric shadow on the outer disk. At wavelengths > 2 micron, the flux varies several percent on monthly timescales. The variations are more regular when the vortex is present. The vortex is directly visible as an arc at ultraviolet through near-infrared wavelengths, given sub-AU spatial resolution.

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arXiv2016

Radiation hydrodynamical models of the inner rim in protoplanetary disks

Many stars host planets orbiting within a few astronomical units (AU). The occurrence rate and distributions of masses and orbits vary greatly with the host stars mass. These close planets origins are a mystery that motivates investigating protoplanetary disks central regions. A key factor governing the conditions near the star is the silicate sublimation front, which largely determines where the starlight is absorbed, and which is often called the inner rim. We present the first radiation hydrodynamical modeling of the sublimation front in the disks around the young intermediate-mass stars called Herbig Ae stars. The models are axisymmetric, and include starlight heating, silicate grains sublimating and condensing to equilibrium at the local, time-dependent temperature and density, and accretion stresses parametrizing the results of MHD magneto-rotational turbulence models. The results compare well with radiation hydrostatic solutions, and prove to be dynamically stable. Passing the model disks into Monte Carlo radiative transfer calculations, we show that the models satisfy observational constraints on the inner rims location. A small optically-thin halo of hot dust naturally arises between the inner rim and the star. The inner rim has a substantial radial extent, corresponding to several disk scale heights. While the fronts overall position varies with the stellar luminosity, its radial extent depends on the mass accretion rate. A pressure maximum develops near the location of thermal ionization at temperatures about 1000 K. The pressure maximum is capable of halting solid pebbles radial drift and concentrating them in a zone where temperatures are sufficiently high for annealing to form crystalline silicates.

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arXiv2014

Effect of OH depletion on measurements of the mass-to-flux ratio in molecular cloud cores

The ratio of mass and magnetic flux determines the relative importance of magnetic and gravitational forces in the evolution of molecular clouds and their cores. Its measurement is thus central in discriminating between different theories of core formation and evolution. Here we discuss the effect of chemical depletion on measurements of the mass-to-flux ratio using the same molecule (OH) both for Zeeman measurements of the magnetic field and the determination of the mass of the region. The uncertainties entering through the OH abundance in determining separately the magnetic field and the mass of a region have been recognized in the literature. It has been proposed however that, when comparing two regions of the same cloud, the abundance will in both cases be the same. We show that this assumption is invalid. We demonstrate that when comparing regions with different densities, the effect of OH depletion in measuring changes of the mass-to-flux ratio between different parts of the same cloud can even reverse the direction of the underlying trends (for example, the mass-to-flux ratio may appear to decrease as we move to higher density regions). The systematic errors enter primarily through the inadequate estimation of the mass of the region.

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arXiv2014

Transport and Accretion in Planet-Forming Disks

Planets appear to form in environments shaped by the gas flowing through protostellar disks to the central young stars. The flows in turn are governed by orbital angular momentum transfer. In this chapter we summarize current understanding of the transfer processes best able to account for the flows, including magneto-rotational turbulence, magnetically-launched winds, self-gravitational instability and vortices driven by hydrodynamical instabilities. For each in turn we outline the major achievements of the past few years and the outstanding questions. We underscore the requirements for operation, especially ionization for the magnetic processes and heating and cooling for the others. We describe the distribution and strength of the resulting flows and compare with the long-used phenomenological $α$-picture, highlighting issues where the fuller physical picture yields substantially different answers. We also discuss the links between magnetized turbulence and magnetically-launched outflows, and between magnetized turbulence and hydrodynamical vortices. We end with a summary of the status of efforts to detect specific signatures of the flows.

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arXiv2014

Magnetic Coupling in the Disks Around Young Gas Giant Planets

We examine the conditions under which the disks of gas and dust orbiting young gas giant planets are sufficiently conducting to experience turbulence driven by the magneto-rotational instability. By modeling the ionization and conductivity in the disk around proto-Jupiter, we find that turbulence is possible if the X-rays emitted near the Sun reach the planet's vicinity and either (1) the gas surface densities are in the range of the minimum-mass models constructed by augmenting Jupiter's satellites to Solar composition, while dust is depleted from the disk atmosphere, or (2) the surface densities are much less, and in the range of gas-starved models fed with material from the Solar nebula, but not so low that ambipolar diffusion decouples the neutral gas from the plasma. The results lend support to both minimum-mass and gas-starved models of the protojovian disk: (1) The dusty minimum-mass models have internal conductivities low enough to prevent angular momentum transfer by magnetic forces, as required for the material to remain in place while the satellites form. (2) The gas-starved models have magnetically-active surface layers and a decoupled interior "dead zone". Similar active layers in the Solar nebula yield accretion stresses in the range assumed in constructing the circumjovian gas-starved models. Our results also point to aspects of both classes of models that can be further developed. Non-turbulent minimum-mass models will lose dust from their atmospheres by settling, enabling gas to accrete through a thin surface layer. For the gas-starved models it is crucial to learn whether enough stellar X-ray and ultraviolet photons reach the circumjovian disk. Additionally the stress-to-pressure ratio ought to increase with distance from the planet, likely leading to episodic accretion outbursts.

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arXiv2013

Herbig Stars' Near-Infrared Excess: An Origin in the Protostellar Disk's Magnetically-Supported Atmosphere

Young stars with masses 2-8 Suns, called the Herbig Ae and Be stars, often show a near-infrared excess too large to explain with a hydrostatically-supported circumstellar disk of gas and dust. At the same time the accretion flow carrying the circumstellar gas to the star is thought to be driven by magneto-rotational turbulence, which according to numerical MHD modeling yields an extended low-density atmosphere supported by the magnetic fields. We demonstrate that the base of the atmosphere can be optically-thick to the starlight and that the parts lying near 1 AU are tall enough to double the fraction of the stellar luminosity reprocessed into the near-infrared. We generate synthetic spectral energy distributions (SEDs) using Monte Carlo radiative transfer calculations with opacities for sub-micron silicate and carbonaceous grains. The synthetic SEDs closely follow the median Herbig SED constructed recently by Mulders and Dominik, and in particular match the large near-infrared flux, provided the grains have a mass fraction close to interstellar near the disk's inner rim.

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arXiv2013

Exploring the circumstellar environment of the young eruptive star V2492 Cyg

Context. V2492 Cyg is a young eruptive star that went into outburst in 2010. The near-infrared color changes observed since the outburst peak suggest that the source belongs to a newly defined sub-class of young eruptive stars, where time-dependent accretion and variable line-of-sight extinction play a combined role in the flux changes. Aims. In order to learn about the origin of the light variations and to explore the circumstellar and interstellar environment of V2492 Cyg, we monitored the source at ten different wavelengths, between 0.55 μm and 2.2 μm from the ground and between 3.6 μm and 160 μm from space. Methods. We analyze the light curves and study the color-color diagrams via comparison with the standard reddening path. We examine the structure of the molecular cloud hosting V2492 Cyg by computing temperature and optical depth maps from the far-infrared data. Results. We find that the shapes of the light curves at different wavelengths are strictly self-similar and that the observed variability is related to a single physical process, most likely variable extinction. We suggest that the central source is episodically occulted by a dense dust cloud in the inner disk, and, based on the invariability of the far-infrared fluxes, we propose that it is a long-lived rather than a transient structure. In some respects, V2492 Cyg can be regarded as a young, embedded analog of UX Orionis-type stars. Conclusions. The example of V2492 Cyg demonstrates that the light variations of young eruptive stars are not exclusively related to changing accretion. The variability provided information on an azimuthally asymmetric structural element in the inner disk. Such an asymmetric density distribution in the terrestrial zone may also have consequences for the initial conditions of planet formation.

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arXiv2012

Mid-Infrared Spectral Variability Atlas of Young Stellar Objects

Optical and near-infrared variability is a well-known property of young stellar objects. However, a growing number of recent studies claim that a considerable fraction of them also exhibit mid-infrared flux changes. With the aim of studying and interpreting variability on a decadal timescale, here we present a mid-infrared spectral atlas containing observations of 68 low- and intermediate mass young stellar objects. The atlas consists of 2.5-11.6 um low-resolution spectra obtained with the ISOPHOT-S instrument on-board the Infrared Space Observatory (ISO) between 1996 and 1998, as well as 5.2-14.5 um low-resolution spectra obtained with the IRS instrument on-board the Spitzer Space Telescope between 2004 and 2007. The observations were retrieved from the ISO and Spitzer archives and were post-processed interactively by our own routines. For those 47 objects where multi-epoch spectra were available, we analyze mid-infrared spectral variability on annual and/or decadal timescales. We identify 37 variable candidate sources. Many stars show wavelength-independent flux changes, possibly due to variable accretion rate. In several systems, all exhibiting 10 um silicate emission, the variability of the 6-8 um continuum and the silicate feature exhibit different amplitudes. A possible explanation is variable shadowing of the silicate emitting region by an inner disk structure of changing height or extra silicate emission from dust clouds in the disk atmosphere. Our results suggest that mid-infrared variability, in particular the wavelength-dependent changes, are more ubiquitous than was known before. Interpreting this variability is a new possibility to explore the structure of the disk and its dynamical processes.

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arXiv2012

A Hot Gap Around Jupiter's Orbit in the Solar Nebula

The Sun was an order of magnitude more luminous during the first few hundred thousand years of its existence, due in part to the gravitational energy released by material accreting from the Solar nebula. If Jupiter was already near its present mass, the planet's tides opened an optically-thin gap in the nebula. We show using Monte Carlo radiative transfer calculations that sunlight absorbed by the nebula and re-radiated into the gap raised temperatures well above the sublimation threshold for water ice, with potentially drastic consequences for the icy bodies in Jupiter's feeding zone. Bodies up to a meter in size were vaporized within a single orbit if the planet was near its present location during this early epoch. Dust particles lost their ice mantles, and planetesimals were partially to fully devolatilized, depending on their size. Scenarios in which Jupiter formed promptly, such as those involving a gravitational instability of the massive early nebula, must cope with the high temperatures. Enriching Jupiter in the noble gases through delivery trapped in clathrate hydrates will be more difficult, but might be achieved by either forming the planet much further from the star, or capturing planetesimals at later epochs. The hot gap resulting from an early origin for Jupiter also would affect the surface compositions of any primordial Trojan asteroids.

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arXiv2011

Turbulence and Steady Flows in 3D Global Stratified MHD Simulations of Accretion Disks

We present full 2 Pi global 3-D stratified MHD simulations of accretion disks. We interpret our results in the context of proto-planetary disks. We investigate the turbulence driven by the magneto-rotational instability (MRI) using the PLUTO Godunov code in spherical coordinates with the accurate and robust HLLD Riemann solver. We follow the turbulence for more than 1500 orbits at the innermost radius of the domain to measure the overall strength of turbulent motions and the detailed accretion flow pattern. We find that regions within two scale heights of the midplane have a turbulent Mach number of about 0.1 and a magnetic pressure two to three orders of magnitude less than the gas pressure, while outside three scale heights the magnetic pressure equals or exceeds the gas pressure and the turbulence is transonic, leading to large density fluctuations. The strongest large-scale density disturbances are spiral density waves, and the strongest of these waves has m=5. No clear meridional circulation appears in the calculations because fluctuating radial pressure gradients lead to changes in the orbital frequency, comparable in importance to the stress gradients that drive the meridional flows in viscous models. The net mass flow rate is well-reproduced by a viscous model using the mean stress distribution taken from the MHD calculation. The strength of the mean turbulent magnetic field is inversely proportional to the radius, so the fields are approximately force-free on the largest scales. Consequently the accretion stress falls off as the inverse square of the radius.

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arXiv2011

Heating and Cooling Protostellar Disks

We examine heating and cooling in protostellar disks using 3-D radiation-MHD calculations of a patch of the Solar nebula at 1 AU, employing the shearing-box and flux-limited radiation diffusion approximations. The disk atmosphere is ionized by stellar X-rays, well-coupled to magnetic fields, and sustains a turbulent accretion flow driven by magneto-rotational instability, while the interior is resistive and magnetically dead. The turbulent layers heat by absorbing the light from the central star and by dissipating the magnetic fields. They are optically-thin to their own radiation and cool inefficiently. The optically-thick interior in contrast is heated only weakly, by re-emission from the atmosphere. The interior is colder than a classical viscous model, and isothermal. The magnetic fields support an extended atmosphere that absorbs the starlight 1.5 times higher than the hydrostatic viscous model. The disk thickness thus measures not the internal temperature, but the magnetic field strength. Fluctuations in the fields move the starlight-absorbing surface up and down. The height ranges between 13% and 24% of the radius over timescales of several orbits, with implications for infrared variability. The fields are buoyant, so the accretion heating occurs higher in the atmosphere than the stresses. The heating is localized around current sheets, caused by magneto-rotational instability at lower elevations and by Parker instability at higher elevations. Gas in the sheets is heated above the stellar irradiation temperature, even though accretion is much less than irradiation power when volume-averaged. The hot optically-thin current sheets might be detectable through their line emission.

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arXiv2009

Dust Transport in Protostellar Disks Through Turbulence and Settling

We apply ionization balance and MHD calculations to investigate whether magnetic activity moderated by recombination on dust can account for the mass accretion rates and the mid-infrared spectra and variability of protostellar disks. The MHD calculations use the stratified shearing-box approach and include grain settling and the feedback from the changing dust abundance on the resistivity of the gas. The two-decade spread in accretion rates among T Tauri stars is too large to result solely from variety in the grain size and stellar X-ray luminosity, but can be produced by varying these together with the disk magnetic flux. The diversity in the silicate bands can come from the coupling of grain settling to the distribution of the magneto-rotational turbulence, through three effects: (1) Recombination on grains yields a magnetically inactive dead zone extending above two scale heights, while turbulence in the magnetically active disk atmosphere overshoots the dead zone boundary by only about one scale height. (2) Grains deep in the dead zone oscillate vertically in waves driven by the turbulent layer above, but on average settle at the laminar rates, so the interior of the dead zone is a particle sink and the disk atmosphere becomes dust-depleted. (3) With sufficient depletion, the dead zone is thinner and mixing dredges grains off the midplane. The MHD results also show that the magnetic activity intermittently lifts clouds of dust into the atmosphere. The photosphere height changes by up to one-third over a few orbits, while the extinction along lines of sight grazing the disk surface varies by factors of two over times down to 0.1 orbit. We suggest that the changing shadows cast by the dust clouds on the outer disk are a cause of the daily to monthly mid-infrared variability in some young stars. (Abridged.)

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arXiv2009

Energetic Protons, Radionuclides and Magnetic Activity in Protostellar Disks

We calculate the location of the magnetically-inactive dead zone in the minimum-mass protosolar disk, under ionization scenarios including stellar X-rays, long- or short-lived radionuclide decay, and energetic protons arriving from the general interstellar medium, from a nearby supernova explosion, from the disk corona, or from the corona of the young star. The disk contains a dead zone in all scenarios except those with small dust grains removed and a fraction of the short-lived radionuclides remaining in the gas. All the cases without exception have an "undead zone" where intermediate resistivities prevent magneto-rotational turbulence while allowing shear-generated large-scale magnetic fields. The mass column in the undead zone is typically greater than the column in the turbulent surface layers. The results support the idea that the dead and undead zones are robust consequences of cold, dusty gas with mass columns exceeding 1000 g/cm^2.

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arXiv2008

Assembling the Building Blocks of Giant Planets around Intermediate Mass Stars

We examine a physical process that leads to the efficient formation of gas giant planets around intermediate mass stars. In the gaseous protoplanetary disks surrounding rapidly-accreting intermediate-mass stars we show that the midplane temperature (heated primarily by turbulent dissipation) can reach > 1000 K out to 1 AU. Thermal ionization of this hot gas couples the disk to the magnetic field, allowing the magneto-rotational instability (MRI) to generate turbulence and transport angular momentum. Further from the central star the ionization fraction decreases, decoupling the disk from the magnetic field and reducing the efficiency of angular momentum transport. As the disk evolves towards a quasi-steady state, a local maximum in the surface density and in the midplane pressure both develop at the inner edge of the MRI-dead zone, trapping inwardly migrating solid bodies. Small particles accumulate and coagulate into planetesimals which grow rapidly until they reach isolation mass. In contrast to the situation around solar type stars, we show that the isolation mass for cores at this critical radius around the more massive stars is large enough to promote the accretion of significant amounts of gas prior to disk depletion. Through this process, we anticipate a prolific production of gas giants at ~1 AU around intermediate-mass stars.

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