arXiv subjects

Vitaly Akimkin

Publications and source records attributed to Vitaly Akimkin.

17 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

The Effect of X-Ray and Accretion Variability on Mid-Infrared Lines in the Young Disk-Bearing Binary DQ Tau

A star's radiation field is the main energy source of a planet-forming disk. Stellar photons---from X-rays to optical---are reprocessed in the inner protoplanetary disk enabling mid-IR diagnostics of the disk's physical conditions. Most pre-main-sequence stars accrete at moderate rates and emit X-rays efficiently. Such activity is expected to drive stochastic variability in the stellar spectrum. It is not clear to what extent such variability affects the thermochemical structure of protoplanetary disks. We aim to examine the effect of routine accretion variability and X-ray flares on the thermochemical structure and mid-IR line emission spectra of protoplanetary disks. We combine multiepoch, contemporaneous X-ray and NUV/optical observations of the DQ Tau binary with JWST/MIRI spectra of its circumbinary disk. We interpret the data and assess the effect of a varying stellar spectrum on the disk using a thermochemical model illustrative of the system. Synthetic fluxes of CO, CO2, HCN, and H2O are systematically stronger at periastron than at apastron due to an enhanced accretion luminosity. Variations in the integrated fluxes lie within a factor of two between epochs, in agreement with the JWST/MIRI spectra of DQ Tau. Routine stellar variability induces only modest changes in the disk's structure, yet it can still shift the snowline outwards by 17 percent relative to its apastron position. Because the JWST observations did not coincide with X-ray flares, our flare results rely on simulations: moderate-intensity flares leave most mid-IR molecular emission unchanged; in contrast, X-ray flares strongly enhance the abundances and mid-IR luminosities of H I, Ar II, and Ne II in the disk surface. Our results imply that the Spitzer/JWST line variability observed in non-outbursting systems is consistent with moderately variable stellar spectra driven by accretion and magnetospheric activity.

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arXiv2026

Magnetohydrodynamical opening of dust traps in protoplanetary disks

Observed ring-like structures in protoplanetary disks are often interpreted as local pressure maxima, which induce efficient dust concentration. We revisit this paradigm, considering the effect of the large-scale magnetic field stresses on the gas rotation speed. Our simulations show that the magnetic field can be dynamically strong and cause $1-2$% deviation from the Keplerian rotation at the periphery of a typical turbulent disk with dust grains of size $> 1\,μ$m. This effect increases the inward drift speed of large grains characterized by Stokes number of $0.01-0.1$ by up to two times in our simulations. Importantly, such MHD deviation from the Keplerian rotation does not depend on the local gas pressure gradient and leads to drift towards the star only. The fast drift induced by this effect can cancel out the outward drift caused by the positive pressure gradient at the inner edge of a ring and open up the dust trap. For the disks with turbulence parameter $α=10^{-3}$, this effect appears in the rings with a half-width of $10$ au and a density contrast up to $60$% ($200$% for $α=10^{-2}$). Thus, the presence of a large-scale magnetic field in protoplanetary disks either completely prevents or imposes stricter conditions for dust accumulation and the onset of the streaming instability in the density rings in protoplanetary 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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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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arXiv2023

Coagulation-Fragmentation Equilibrium for Charged Dust: Abundance of Submicron Grains Increases Dramatically in Protoplanetary Disks

Dust coagulation in protoplanetary disks is not straightforward and is subject to several slow-down mechanisms, such as bouncing, fragmentation and radial drift to the star. Furthermore, dust grains in UV-shielded disk regions are negatively charged due to collisions with the surrounding electrons and ions, which leads to their electrostatic repulsion. For typical disk conditions, the relative velocities between micron-size grains are small and their collisions are strongly affected by the repulsion. On the other hand, collisions between pebble-size grains can be too energetic, leading to grain fragmentation. The aim of the present paper is to study a combined effect of the electrostatic and fragmentation barriers on dust evolution. We numerically solve the Smoluchowski coagulation-fragmentation equation for grains whose charging occurs under conditions typical for the inner disk regions, where thermal ionization operates. We find that dust fragmentation efficiently resupplies the population of small grains under the electrostatic barrier. As a result, the equilibrium abundance of sub-micron grains is enhanced by several orders of magnitude compared to the case of neutral dust. For some conditions with fragmentation velocities $\sim 1$ m s$^{-1}$, macroscopic grains are completely destroyed.

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arXiv2022

Dust grains cannot grow to millimeter sizes in protostellar envelopes

A big question in the field of star and planet formation is the time at which substantial dust grain growth occurs. The observed properties of dust emission across different wavelength ranges have been used as an indication that millimeter-sized grains are already present in the envelopes of young protostars. However, this interpretation is in tension with results from coagulation simulations, which are not able to produce such large grains in these conditions. In this work, we show analytically that the production of millimeter-sized grains in protostellar envelopes is impossible under the standard assumptions about the coagulation process. We discuss several possibilities that may serve to explain the observed dust emission in the absence of in-situ grain growth to millimeter sizes.

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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

Impact of magneto-rotational instability on grain growth in protoplanetary disks: II. Increased grain collisional velocities

Turbulence is the dominant source of collisional velocities for grains with a wide range of sizes in protoplanetary disks. So far, only Kolmogorov turbulence has been considered for calculating grain collisional velocities, despite the evidence that turbulence in protoplanetary disks may be non-Kolmogorov. In this work, we present calculations of grain collisional velocities for arbitrary turbulence models characterized by power-law spectra and determined by three dimensionless parameters: the slope of the kinetic energy spectrum, the slope of the auto-correlation time, and the Reynolds number. The implications of our results are illustrated by numerical simulations of the grain size evolution for different turbulence models. We find that for the modeled cases of the Iroshnikov-Kraichnan turbulence and the turbulence induced by the magneto-rotational instabilities, collisional velocities of small grains are much larger than those for the standard Kolmogorov turbulence. This leads to faster grain coagulation in the outer regions of protoplanetary disks, resulting in rapid increase of dust opacity in mm-wavelength and possibly promoting planet formation in very young disks.

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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

Gravitoviscous Protoplanetary Discs with a Dust Component. IV. Disc Outer Edges, Spectral Indices, and Opacity Gaps

The crucial initial step in planet formation is the agglomeration of micron-sized dust into macroscopic aggregates. This phase is likely to happen very early during the protostellar disc formation, which is characterised by active gas dynamics. We present numerical simulations of protostellar/protoplanetary disc long-term evolution, which includes gas dynamics with self-gravity in the thin-disc limit, and bidisperse dust grain evolution due to coagulation, fragmentation, and drift through the gas. We show that the decrease of the grain size to the disc periphery leads to sharp outer edges in dust millimetre emission, which are explained by a drop in dust opacity coefficient rather than by dust surface density variations. These visible outer edges are at the location where average grain size $\approx λ/2π$, where $λ$ is the observational wavelength, so discs typically look more compact at longer wavelengths if dust size decreases outwards. This allows a simple recipe for reconstructing grain sizes in disc outer regions. Discs may look larger at longer wavelengths if grain size does not reach $λ/2π$ for some wavelength. Disc visible sizes evolve non-monotonically over the first million years and differ from dust and gas physical sizes by factor of a few. We compare our model with recent observation data on gas and dust disc sizes, far-infrared fluxes and spectral indices of protoplanetary discs in Lupus. We also show that non-monotonic variations of the grain size in radial direction can cause wavelength-dependent opacity gaps, which are not associated with any physical gaps in the dust density distribution.

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arXiv2020

Gravitoviscous protoplanetary disks with a dust component. III. Evolution of gas, dust, and pebbles

We study the dynamics and growth of dust particles in circumstellar disks of different masses that are prone to gravitational instability during the critical first Myr of their evolution. The dust component is made up of two different components: micron-sized dust and grown dust of evolving size. For the dust component, we considered the dust coagulation, fragmentation, momentum exchange with the gas, and dust self-gravity. We found that the micron-sized dust particles grow rapidly in the circumstellar disk, reaching a few cm in size in the inner 100 au of the disk during less than 100 kyr after the disk formation, provided that fragmentation velocity is $30\rm~ms^{-1}$. Due to the accretion of micron dust particles from the surrounding envelope, which serves as a micron dust reservoir, the approximately cm-sized dust particles continue to be present in the disk for more than 900 kyr after the disk formation and maintain a dust-to-gas ratio close to 0.01. We show that a strong correlation exists between the gas and pebble fluxes in the disk. We find that radial surface density distribution of pebbles in the disk shows power-law distribution with an index similar to that of the Minimum-mass solar nebula (MMSN) regardless the disk mass. We also show that the gas surface density in our models agrees well with measurements of dust in protoplanetary disks of AS 209, HD 163296, and DoAr 25 systems. Pebbles are formed during the very early stages of protoplanetary disk evolution. They play a crucial role in the planet formation process. Our disc simulations reveal the early onset ($<10^5$ yr) of an inwards-drifting flux of pebble-sized particles that makes up approximately between one hundredth and one tenth of the gas mass flux, which appears consistent with mm-observations of discs. (Abridged)

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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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arXiv2019

Gravitoviscous protoplanetary disks with a dust component. I. The importance of the inner sub-au region

The central region of a circumstellar disk is difficult to resolve in global numerical simulations of collapsing cloud cores, but its effect on the evolution of the entire disk can be significant. We use numerical hydrodynamics simulations to model the long-term evolution of self-gravitating and viscous circumstellar disks in the thin-disk limit. Simulations start from the gravitational collapse of prestellar cores of 0.5--1.0~$M_\odot$ and both gaseous and dusty subsystems were considered, including a model for dust growth. The inner unresolved 1.0 au of the disk is replaced with a central "smart" cell (CSC) -- a simplified model that simulates physical processes that may occur in this region. We found that the mass transport rate through the CSC has an appreciable effect on the evolution of the entire disk. Models with slow mass transport form more massive and warmer disks and they are more susceptible to gravitational instability and fragmentation, including a newly identified episodic mode of disk fragmentation in the T Tauri phase of disk evolution. Models with slow mass transport through the CSC feature episodic accretion and luminosity bursts in the early evolution, while models with fast transport are characterized by a steadily declining accretion rate with low-amplitude flickering. Dust grows to a larger, decimeter size in the slow transport models and efficiently drifts in the CSC, where it accumulates reaching the limit when streaming instability becomes operational. We argue that gravitational instability, together with streaming instability likely operating in the inner disk regions, constitute two concurrent planet-forming mechanisms, which may explain the observed diversity of exoplanetary orbits (Abridged).

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arXiv2019

Revealing dust segregation in protoplanetary discs with the help of multi-frequency spectral index maps

Dust is known to drift and grow in protoplanetary discs, which results in dust segregation over the disc extent. Maps of the spectral index $α$ are a common tool for studying the dust content in protoplanetary discs. The analysis of observationally derived maps reveals significant gradients of the spectral index, confirming that dust evolves in the disc, but a more detailed information about the dust redistribution is required to make inferences about the early stages of dust growth. We calculated the spectral index maps based on the results of numerical hydrodynamical simulations using the FEOSAD code, which allows studying a long-term dynamics of a self-gravitating viscous disc populated with coagulating, drifting, and fragmenting dust. Here we demonstrate that values of the spectral index estimated for different wavelength intervals within the far-infrared and radio bands reveal the presence of dust grains of various sizes. Specifically, we show that the disc regions with the maximal spectral index in a specific wavelength interval are the regions with the prevalence of dust grains of a specific size. Thus, a set of spectral index maps derived using different wavelength intervals can be used to recover the dust size-distribution over the disc extent.

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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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arXiv2018

The early evolution of viscous and self-gravitating circumstellar disks with a dust component

The long-term evolution of a circumstellar disk starting from its formation and ending in the T Tauri phase was simulated numerically with the purpose of studying the evolution of dust in the disk with distinct values of viscous α-parameter and dust fragmentation velocity v_frag. We solved numerical hydrodynamics equations in the thin-disk limit, which are modified to include a dust component consisting of two parts: sub-micron-sized dust and grown dust with a maximum radius a_r. The former is strictly coupled to the gas, while the latter interacts with the gas via friction. The conversion of small to grown dust, dust growth, and dust self-gravity are also considered. We found that the process of dust growth known for the older protoplanetary phase also holds for the embedded phase of disk evolution. The dust growth efficiency depends on the radial distance from the star - a_r is largest in the inner disk and gradually declines with radial distance. In the inner disk, a_r is limited by the dust fragmentation barrier. The process of small-to-grown dust conversion is very fast once the disk is formed. The total mass of grown dust in the disk (beyond 1 AU) reaches tens or even hundreds of Earth masses already in the embedded phase of star formation and even a greater amount of grown dust drifts in the inner, unresolved 1 AU of the disk. Dust does not usually grow to radii greater than a few cm. A notable exception are models with α<= 10^{-3}, in which case a zone with reduced mass transport develops in the inner disk and dust can grow to meter-sized boulders in the inner 10 AU. Grown dust drifts inward and accumulates in the inner disk regions. This effect is most pronounced in the α<= 10^{-3} models where several hundreds of Earth masses can be accumulated in a narrow region of several AU from the star by the end of embedded phase. (abridged).

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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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