arXiv subjects

Tamara Molyarova

Publications and source records attributed to Tamara Molyarova.

16 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

From Young to Older Disks: JWST/MIRI Evidence for Fading Molecular Emission and Hints for Elevated C/O in Upper Scorpius

We present JWST/MIRI spectroscopy of 14 disks in the older (~5-10 Myr) Upper Scorpius (USco) association and use slab of gas in local thermal equilibrium to infer basic gas properties. We find that half of these disks are molecular rich, with detections of H$_2$O, CO$_2$, HCN, C$_2$H$_2$, and H$_2$, while the other half are molecular poor, showing no molecular emission other than H$_2$. We further combine this sample with 10 other USco disks from the AGE-PRO program and compare the combined older sample to young (~1-3 Myr) JDISCS Cycle~1 systems, which are analyzed in a similar manner. We find that USco disks have lower detection rates of major molecular species but a significantly higher detection rate of rarer C-bearing molecules such as C$_4$H$_2$. At a given accretion luminosity, molecular line luminosities are systematically lower in USco than in young disks, and the scaling relations with accretion luminosity differ between the two populations. Moreover, we find that about half of the older disks, preferentially the millimeter faint, and likely more compact disks, have observable mass ratios of C- to O-bearing molecules that are higher than the maximum values in the young sample. These results point to reduced inner-disk molecular gas masses, cooler emitting layers, and higher inner gas C/O ratios in older disks, the latter being consistent with pebble drift. Taken together, our findings provide evidence for chemical evolution of inner disk gas from young to older systems, with important implications for the accretion of primordial planetary atmospheres.

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arXiv2026

Metamorphoses of carbon and oxygen in protoplanetary discs: how chemistry and radial drift transform inner disc C/O ratios

The chemical composition of a protoplanetary disc is sensitive to its thermal structure and dust properties, and can provide insights into the disc evolution. Recent observations with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) reveal correlations of the inner disc compositions with disc size, accretion rate and stellar mass, explained by the key role of dust radial drift in redistributing primordial volatiles. We explore how chemical reactions change the composition of ices carried with pebbles and how they affect the inner disc C/O ratios in a disc around a solar mass star. We consider different drift efficiencies set by dust fragmentation velocity and include dust traps at different locations. We vary the incident cosmic ray ionisation rate $ζ$ and the efficiency of cosmic ray dissociation of ices, and consider the effect of carbon grain destruction. We find that methane depletion within $<1$ Myr prevents the delivery of carbon-rich gas to the inner disc and yields $\mathrm{C/O} \lesssim1$ for $ζ\geq10^{-17}$ s$^{-1}$. Dust traps collect water and carbon-rich ices formed via methane destruction, further lowering the inner disc metallicity and C/O ratio. Cosmic-ray driven photodissociation of ices can convert water to O$_2$ and carbon-bearing molecules to CO, allowing ices to escape the trap if $\gtrsim10 \%$ of the dissociated products can participate in surface reactions. We discuss the observational implications and conclude that cosmic rays and their effect on ices are the key factors that determine the impact of chemistry on the inner disc composition.

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arXiv2026

Evidence for Systematically Larger Dust Grains in Upper Scorpius Relative to Taurus Disks

Infrared spectroscopy provides a powerful diagnostic for probing the mineralogical properties of dust grains in the terrestrial planet-forming regions of protoplanetary disks. The Upper Scorpius association offers an excellent laboratory for studying disk evolution because it represents an evolved stage (5-10 Myr) compared with younger star-forming regions such as the Taurus Molecular Cloud (1-3 Myr). In this work, we present mid-infrared spectra of 11 disks in Upper Scorpius that were obtained with the Mid-Infrared Instrument aboard the James Webb Space Telescope. We derive emission feature indices for crystalline olivine and pyroxene centered at about 9.2 micron and 11.1 micron, as well as perform spectral decomposition to quantify dust crystallinity and characteristic grain size. These results are compared with those measured from Spitzer/IRS spectra of 31 disks in Taurus with similar stellar types. We find no significant difference in dust crystallinity between the two groups, suggesting that crystallization is largely established at early stages of disk evolution. Our analysis indicates that the average grain size in Upper Scorpius disks is systematically larger than that in Taurus disks, aligning with theories of dust evolution. We also observe a trend of increasing grain size towards later-type stars, as well as a correlation between crystallinity, grain size and the flux ratio F24/F8, which serves as a measure of dust settling. These results suggest that dust processing proceeds in tandem with disk evolution.

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arXiv2026

JWST-DECO: The Impact of Accretion on Mid-Infrared Observable Water in Planet-forming Disks

The inner few au of a protoplanetary disk hosts the majority of observed exoplanets and is the primary planet-forming zone of the disk. The mid-IR spectra of disks, with its rich forest of water lines, provides key insights into the composition of forming planets. One of the strongest trends seen with data from Spitzer and now JWST is a correlation between the increase in water line flux and accretion luminosity of a system. We set out to reproduce and understand this trend by adding an accretion module to the thermo-chemical code DALI, and explore how viscous accretion heating and the addition of accretion luminosity impacts the 2D temperature structure and the observable water reservoir. We reproduce the trend that the observed water mass increases with accretion rate, with hot, warm, and cool water being more to less strongly correlated, respectively. Our model suggests that these trends are due to an increased emitting area with accretion rate, with some of the cool and warm population becoming hidden underneath an optically thick dust surface and being constrained to a smaller disk volume. This trend is driven by the accretion-related increase in central luminosity, while viscous heating centralized to the midplane has no impact on observed water mass.

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arXiv2025

Deuteration of water in protoplanetary discs during luminosity outbursts: model predictions for FU Ori discs

Luminosity outbursts of FU Ori-type objects (FUors) allow us to observe in the gas the molecules that are typically present in the ice in protoplanetary discs. In particular, the fraction of deuterated water, which is usually is mostly frozen in the midplane of a protoplanetary disc, has been measured for the first time in the gas of the disc around a FUor V883 Ori. We test the hypothesis that the observed high HDO/H$_{2}$O ratio in the V883 Ori protoplanetary disc can be explained by luminosity outbursts of different amplitude, including a series of two consecutive outbursts. Using the ANDES astrochemical code, we modelled the distributions of water and deuterated water abundances under the action of luminosity outbursts of different amplitudes (from 400 to 10 000 $L_{\odot}$) and at different stellar luminosities at the pre-outburst stage. We show that the best agreement with the observed HDO/H$_{2}$O profile is obtained for outburst amplitudes of 2 000 and 10 000 $L_{\odot}$, while the observed bolometric luminosity of V883 Ori does not exceed 400 $L_{\odot}$. We discuss possible reasons for this discrepancy, including the presence of past luminosity outbursts, the age of the star, and the influence of additional heating mechanisms in the midplane of the protoplanetary disc. We also consider how the high observed $\rm HDO/H_{2}O$ ratio may be related to the evolution of the chemical composition of the ice in the protoplanetary disc and the chemical processes activated under outburst conditions.

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arXiv2025

The Effect of Luminosity Outbursts on the Abundance of Pebbles and Their Ice Mantles in Protoplanetary Disks

Centimeter-sized dust grains-pebbles-are necessary for planetesimal formation via the streaming instability, they play an important role in forming protoplanetary cores and giant planets, as well as enriching their atmospheres with chemical elements. This work investigates the effect of luminosity outbursts on the abundance of pebbles and their ice mantles in protoplanetary disks. We perform global simulations of formation and evolution of a self-gravitating viscous protoplanetary disk using the 2D hydrodynamic thin-disk FEOSAD code, which self-consistently reproduces luminosity outbursts. The model includes thermal balance, dust evolution and its interaction with gas, development of magnetorotational instability, adsorption and desorption of four volatile compounds (H$_2$O, CO$_2$, CH$_4$ and CO), and the feedback of ice mantles on dust fragmentation properties. We show that luminosity outbursts have a stronger effect on the positions of CO$_2$, CH$_4$ and CO snowlines compared to the water snowline. This is because the H$_2$O snowline falls within the viscous heating dominated region during early disk evolution stages, while snowlines of other molecules are located in regions dominated by stellar irradiation heating and are thus more sensitive to temperature changes during outbursts. Nevertheless, luminosity outbursts reduce the total amount of pebbles in the disk by half due to destruction of dust aggregates into monomers following the loss of water ice that binds the aggregates together. Pebble recovery occurs over several thousand years after the outburst ends due to collisional coagulation, with recovery timescales significantly exceeding water freeze-out times. Ice mantle desorption occurs in a complex non-axisymmetric 2D region of the disk, associated with spiral substructure formation during early evolution of gravitationally unstable disks.

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arXiv2024

C/O ratios in self-gravitating protoplanetary discs with dust evolution

Elemental abundances, particularly the C/O ratio, are seen as a way to connect the composition of planetary atmospheres with planet formation scenario and the disc chemical environment. We model the chemical composition of gas and ices in a self-gravitating disc on timescales of 0.5\,Myr since its formation to study the evolution of C/O ratio due to dust dynamics and growth, and phase transitions of the volatile species. We use the thin-disc hydrodynamic code FEOSAD, which includes disc self-gravity, thermal balance, dust evolution and turbulent diffusion, and treats dust as a dynamically different and evolving component interacting with the gas. It also describes freeze-out, sublimation and advection of four volatile species: H$_2$O, CO$_2$, CH$_4$ and CO. We demonstrate the effect of gas and dust substructures on the distribution of volatiles and C/O ratios, including the formation of multiple snowlines of one species, and point out the anticorrelation between dust-to-gas ratio and total C/O ratio emerging due to the contribution of oxygen-rich ice mantles. We identify time and spatial locations where two distinct trigger mechanisms for planet formation are operating and differentiate them by C/O ratio range: wide range of the C/O ratios of $0-1.4$ for streaming instability, and a much narrower range $0.3-0.6$ for gravitational instability (with the initial value of 0.34). This conclusion is corroborated by observations, showing that transiting exoplanets, which possibly experienced migration through a variety of disc conditions, have significantly larger spread of C/O in comparison with directly imaged exoplanets likely formed in gravitationally unstable outer disk regions. We show that the ice-phase C/O$\approx0.2-0.3$ between the CO, CO$_2$ and CH$_4$ snowlines corresponds to the composition of the Solar system comets, that represent primordial planetesimals.

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arXiv2024

Primordial dust rings, hidden dust mass, and the first generation of planetesimals in gravitationally unstable protoplanetary disks

Aims. A new mechanism of dust accumulation and planetesimal formation in a gravitationally unstable disk with suppressed magnetorotational instability is studied and compared with the classical dead zone in a layered disk model. Methods. We use numerical hydrodynamics simulations in the thin-disk limit FEOSAD code to model the formation and long-term evolution of gravitationally unstable disks, including dust dynamics and growth. Results. We found that in gravitationally unstable disks with a radially varying strength of gravitational instability a region of low mass and angular momentum transport forms in the inner several astronomical units. This region is characterized by low effective α_GI and is similar in characteristics to the dead zone in the layered disk model. As the disk forms and evolves, the GI-induced dead zone accumulates a massive dust ring, which is susceptible to the development of the streaming instability. The model and observationally inferred dust masses and radii may differ significantly in gravitationally unstable disks with massive inner dust rings. Conclusions. The early occurrence of the GI-induced dust ring followed by the presumed development of the streaming instability suggest that this mechanism may form the first generation of planetesimals in the inner terrestrial zone of the disk. The proposed mechanism, however, crucially depends on the susceptibility of the disk to gravitational instability and requires that the magnetorotational instability be suppressed.

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arXiv2023

Observational Chemical Signatures of the Past FU Ori Outbursts

FU Ori-type stars are young stellar objects (YSOs) experiencing luminosity outbursts by a few orders of magnitude, which last for $\sim$$10^2$ years. A dozen of FUors are known up to date, but many more currently quiescent YSOs could have experienced such outbursts in the last $\sim$$10^3$ years. To find observational signatures of possible past outbursts, we utilise ANDES, RADMC-3D code as well as CASA ALMA simulator to model the impact of the outburst on the physical and chemical structure of typical FU Ori systems and how it translates to the molecular lines' fluxes. We identify several combinations of molecular lines that may trace past FU Ori objects both with and without envelopes. The most promising outburst tracers from an observational perspective are the molecular flux combinations of the N$_{2}$H$^{+}$ $J=3-2$, C$^{18}$O $J = 2-1$, H$_2$CO $(J_{\rm K_a, K_c}) = 4_{04}-3_{03}$, and HCN $J = 3-2$ lines. We analyse the processes leading to molecular flux changes and show that they are linked with either thermal desorption or enhanced chemical reactions in the molecular layer. Using observed CO, HCN, N$_2$H$^+$ and H$_2$CO line fluxes from the literature, we identify ten nearby disc systems that might have undergone FU Ori outbursts in the past $\sim$$10^3$ years: [MGM2012] 556, [MGM2012] 371 and [MGM2012] 907 YSOs in L1641, Class II protoplanetary discs around CI Tau, AS 209 and IM Lup and transitional discs DM Tau, GM Aur, LkCa 15 and J1640-2130.

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arXiv2022

Machine learning-accelerated chemistry modeling of protoplanetary disks

Aims. With the large amount of molecular emission data from (sub)millimeter observatories and incoming James Webb Space Telescope infrared spectroscopy, access to fast forward models of the chemical composition of protoplanetary disks is of paramount importance. Methods. We used a thermo-chemical modeling code to generate a diverse population of protoplanetary disk models. We trained a K-nearest neighbors (KNN) regressor to instantly predict the chemistry of other disk models. Results. We show that it is possible to accurately reproduce chemistry using just a small subset of physical conditions, thanks to correlations between the local physical conditions in adopted protoplanetary disk models. We discuss the uncertainties and limitations of this method. Conclusions. The proposed method can be used for Bayesian fitting of the line emission data to retrieve disk properties from observations. We present a pipeline for reproducing the same approach on other disk chemical model sets.

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arXiv2022

Interpreting the atmospheric composition of exoplanets: sensitivity to planet formation assumptions

Constraining planet formation based on the atmospheric composition of exoplanets is a fundamental goal of the exoplanet community. Existing studies commonly try to constrain atmospheric abundances, or to analyze what abundance patterns a given description of planet formation predicts. However, there is also a pressing need to develop methodologies that investigate how to transform atmospheric compositions into planetary formation inferences. In this study we summarize the complexities and uncertainties of state-of-the-art planet formation models and how they influence planetary atmospheric compositions. We introduce a methodology that explores the effect of different formation model assumptions when interpreting atmospheric compositions. We apply this framework to the directly imaged planet HR 8799e. Based on its atmospheric composition, this planet may have migrated significantly during its formation. We show that including the chemical evolution of the protoplanetary disk leads to a reduced need for migration. Moreover, we find that pebble accretion can reproduce the planet's composition, but some of our tested setups lead to too low atmospheric metallicities, even when considering that evaporating pebbles may enrich the disk gas. We conclude that the definitive inversion from atmospheric abundances to planet formation for a given planet may be challenging, but a qualitative understanding of the effects of different formation models is possible, opening up pathways for new investigations.

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arXiv2021

Evolution of dust in protoplanetary disks of eruptive stars

Luminosity bursts in young FU Orionis-type stars warm up the surrounding disks of gas and dust, thus inflicting changes on their morphological and chemical composition. In this work, we aim at studying the effects that such bursts may have on the spatial distribution of dust grain sizes and the corresponding spectral index in protoplanetary disks. We use the numerical hydrodynamics code FEOSAD, which simulates the co-evolution of gas, dust, and volatiles in a protoplanetary disk, taking dust growth and back reaction on gas into account. The dependence of the maximum dust size on the water ice mantles is explicitly considered. The burst is initialized by increasing the luminosity of the central star to 100-300 L_sun for a time period of 100 yr. The water snowline shifts during the burst to a larger distance, resulting in the drop of the maximum dust size interior to the snowline position because of more efficient fragmentation of bare grains. After the burst, the water snowline shifts quickly back to its preburst location followed by renewed dust growth. The timescale of dust regrowth after the burst depends on the radial distance so that the dust grains at smaller distances reach the preburst values faster than the dust grains at larger distances. As a result, a broad peak in the radial distribution of the spectral index in the millimeter dust emission develops at \approx 10 au, which shifts further out as the disk evolves and dust grains regrow to preburst values at progressively larger distances. This feature is most pronounced in evolved axisymmetric disks rather than in young gravitationally unstable counterparts, although young disks may still be good candidates if gravitational instability is suppressed. Abridged.

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arXiv2021

Gravitoviscous protoplanetary disks with a dust component. V. The dynamic model for freeze-out and sublimation of volatiles

The snowlines of various volatile species in protoplanetary disks are associated with abrupt changes in gas composition and dust physical properties. Volatiles may affect dust growth, as they cover grains with icy mantles that can change the fragmentation velocity of the grains. In turn, dust coagulation, fragmentation, and drift through the gas disk can contribute to the redistribution of volatiles between the ice and gas phases. Here we present the hydrodynamic model FEOSAD for protoplanetary disks with two dust populations and volatile dynamics. We compute the spatial distributions of major volatile molecules (H$_2$O, CO$_2$, CH$_4$, and CO) in the gas, on small and grown dust, and analyze the composition of icy mantles over the initial 0.5 Myr of disk evolution. We show that most of ice arrives to the grown dust through coagulation with small grains. Spiral structures and dust rings forming in the disk, as well as photodissociation in the outer regions, lead to the formation of complex snowline shapes and multiple snowlines for each volatile species. During the considered disk evolution, the snowlines shift closer to the star, with their final position being a factor $4-5$ smaller than that at the disk formation epoch. We demonstrate that volatiles tend to collect in the vicinity of their snowlines, both in the ice and gas phases, leading to the formation of thick icy mantles potentially important for dust dynamics. The dust size is affected by a lower fragmentation velocity of bare grains in the model with a higher turbulent viscosity.

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arXiv2020

Chemical modelling of FU Ori protoplanetary disks

Luminosity outbursts of the FUOri type stars, which have a magnitude of $\sim100 L_{\odot}$ and last for decades, may affect chemical composition of the surrounding protoplanetary disk. Using astrochemical modeling we analyze the changes induced by the outburst and search for species sensitive to the luminosity rise. Some changes in the disk molecular composition appear not only during the outburst itself but can also retain for decades after the end of the outburst. We analyze main chemical processes responsible for these effects and assess timescales at which chemically inert species return to the pre-outburst abundances.

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arXiv2018

Chemical Signatures of the FU Ori Outbursts

The FU Ori-type young stellar objects are characterized by a sudden increase in luminosity by 1$-$2 orders of magnitude, followed by slow return to the pre-outburst state on timescales of $\sim$10$-$100 yr. The outburst strongly affects the entire disk, changing its thermal structure and radiation field. In this paper, using a detailed physical-chemical model we study the impact of the FU Ori outburst on the disk chemical inventory. Our main goal is to identify gas-phase molecular tracers of the outburst activity that could be observed after the outburst with modern telescopes such as ALMA and NOEMA. We find that the majority of molecules experience a considerable increase in the total disk gas-phase abundances due to the outburst, mainly due to the sublimation of their ices. Their return to the pre-outburst chemical state takes different amounts of time, from nearly instantaneous to very long. Among the former ones we identify CO, NH$_3$, C$_2$H$_6$, C$_3$H$_4$, etc. Their abundance evolution tightly follows the luminosity curve. For CO the abundance increase does not exceed an order of magnitude, while for other tracers the abundances increase by 2$-$5 orders of magnitude. Other molecules like H$_2$CO and NH$_2$OH have longer retention timescales, remaining in the gas phase for $\sim10-10^3$ yr after the end of the outburst. Thus H$_2$CO could be used as an indicator of the previous outbursts in the post-outburst FU Ori systems. We investigate the corresponding time-dependent chemistry in detail and present the most favorable transitions and ALMA configurations for future observations.

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arXiv2017

Gas mass tracers in protoplanetary disks: CO is still the best

Protoplanetary disk mass is a key parameter controlling the process of planetary system formation. CO molecular emission is often used as a tracer of gas mass in the disk. In this study we consider the ability of CO to trace the gas mass over a wide range of disk structural parameters and search for chemical species that could possibly be used as alternative mass tracers to CO. Specifically, we apply detailed astrochemical modeling to a large set of models of protoplanetary disks around low-mass stars, to select molecules with abundances correlated with the disk mass and being relatively insensitive to other disk properties. We do not consider sophisticated dust evolution models, restricting ourselves with the standard astrochemical assumption of $0.1~μ$m dust. We find that CO is indeed the best molecular tracer for total gas mass, despite the fact that it is not the main carbon carrier, provided reasonable assumptions about CO abundance in the disk are used. Typically, chemical reprocessing lowers the abundance of CO by a factor of 3, compared to the case of photo-dissociation and freeze-out as the only ways of CO depletion. On average only 13% C-atoms reside in gas-phase CO, albeit with variations from 2 to 30%. CO$_2$, H$_2$O and H$_2$CO can potentially serve as alternative mass tracers, the latter two being only applicable if disk structural parameters are known.

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