Lunch talk on May. 27, 2024

The first detected water-rich protoplanetary disk around a late M type star

Speaker: Chengyan Xie (University of Arizona)

Venue: SWIFAR Build 2111

Time: 12:30 PM, Monday, May. 27, 2024

Abstract: 

Gas-rich dust disks around young stars, also called protoplanetary disks, are the birthplaces of planets. Observations of these disks provide a unique opportunity to witness planet formation in action and constrain the distribution of volatiles while planets are assembling. Previous Spitzer spectra of all the disks around late M type (later than M3) stars show very strong carbon-bearing molecular emissions with very weak/non-detected water lines, suggesting all of them are with very high C/O ratios in their inner disk. Today I'm going to show a recently observed JWST spectrum of a water-rich disk, Sz114, which is different from all other late M-star disks previously seen. I will first introduce what protoplanetary disks are and how they form and evolve. I will also introduce the theories that explain how the inner disk gas composition (C/O ratio) evolves, and try to use these theories to explain why Sz114 is so different. I'll show the implications of our model and future observation plans. Related published paper: https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2023ApJ...959L..25X/abstract 

Report PPT:  SWIFAR_Chengyan Xie.pptx