NRAO/Socorro Colloquium Series

Sean Andrews

Harvard


Protoplanetary Disks at High Angular Resolution: Disk Structure, Evolution, and A Glimpse at the Planet Formation Process


With the growing number of planetary systems found around other stars, attention is increasingly focused on the origins of our Solar System and others like it. Direct observations of the primordial reservoirs of planet-building material - the disks around young stars - play a critical role in developing theoretical models of planet formation mechanisms and their efficiencies. I will present a state-of-the-art high angular resolution (0.3" = 40 AU) SubMillimeter Array survey of the 345 GHz (870 microns) dust continuum emission from young protoplanetary disks in the Ophiuchus star-forming region. Two-dimensional radiative transfer calculations are used to simultaneously fit the observed continuum visibilities and broadband SED for each disk with a parametric structure model. Compared to previous work, significant upgrades in the modeling, data quality, and angular resolution for this survey provide improved constraints on key structure parameters, particularly those that describe the spatial distribution of mass. Those modeling results will be used to help characterize the viscous properties and the likelihood of future (and perhaps even past) planet formation in these disks. Along the way, I will comment on how this work foreshadows a few of the pivotal roles that ALMA can play in this field, both in its early science stages and at maturity.






May 15, 2009
11:00 am

Array Operations Center Auditorium

All NRAO employees are invited to attend via video, available in Charlottesville Room 230, Green Bank Room 137 and Tucson N525.

Local Host: Claire Chandler