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UV-driven chemistry as a signpost of late-stage planet formation

Nature Astronomy volume 7, pages 49–56 (2023)Cite this article

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Abstract

The chemical reservoir within protoplanetary disks has a direct impact on planetary compositions and the potential for life. A long-lived carbon- and nitrogen-rich chemistry at cold temperatures (≤ 50 K) is observed within cold and evolved planet-forming disks. This is evidenced by bright emission from small organic radicals in 1–10 Myr aged systems that would otherwise have frozen out onto grains within 1 Myr. We explain how the chemistry of a planet-forming disk evolves from a cosmic-ray/X-ray-dominated regime to a ultraviolet-dominated chemical equilibrium. This, in turn, will bring about a temporal transition in the chemical reservoir from which planets will accrete. This photochemical dominated gas phase chemistry develops as dust evolves via growth, settling and drift, and the small grain population is depleted from the disk atmosphere. A higher gas-to-dust mass ratio allows for deeper penetration of ultraviolet photons is coupled with a carbon-rich gas (C/O > 1) to form carbon-bearing radicals and ions. This further results in gas phase formation of organic molecules, which then would be accreted by any actively forming planets present in the evolved disk.

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Fig. 1: A schematic highlighting the physical evolution of a disk and how that physical environment can affect the chemistry.
Fig. 2: Radial intensity profiles of the observed complex organic molecules and HCN towards the disk around HD 163296.
Fig. 3: The radial and vertical number density distributions of CH3CN and HC3N.
Fig. 4: A comparison of the MRI active region within a non-elevated UV environment and an elevated UV environment.

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Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study can be obtained as part of the MAPS programme and are publicly available via alma-maps.info. This paper makes use of the following ALMA data: ADS/JAO.ALMA#2018.1.01055.L. and 2016.1.01046.S. Data regarding TW Hya can be obtained via data-rich figures in the online version of ref. 58. ALMA is a partnership of European Southern Observatory (ESO) (representing its member states), NSF (USA) and National Institutes of Natural Sciences (Japan), together with National Research Council (Canada), Ministry of Science and Technology and Academia Sinica Insitute of Astronomy and Astrophysics (Taiwan), and Korea Astronomy and Space Science Insitute (Republic of Korea), in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. The Joint ALMA Observatory is operated by ESO, Associated Universities Inc/National Radio Astronomy Observatory and National Astronomical Observatory of Japan. The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.

Code availability

This study relied on the following publicly available coding packages: rac2d https://github.com/fjdu/rac-2d, RADMC-3D https://www.ita.uni-heidelberg.de/~dullemond/software/radmc-3d/ and GoFish https://github.com/richteague/gofish. TORUS is a private code developed by T. Harries and collaborators.

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Acknowledgements

J.K.C. acknowledges support from the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship under grant no. DGE 1256260 and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration FINESST grant, under grant no. 80NSSC19K1534. E.A.B. acknowledges support from National Science Foundation (NSF) AAG grant no. 1907653. A.D.B. acknowledges support from NSF AAG grant no. 1907653. E.A.R. acknowledges support from NSF AST grant no. 1830728. J.B.B. acknowledges support from NASA through the NASA Hubble Fellowship grant no. HST-HF2-51429.001-A, awarded by the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., for NASA, under contract NAS5-26555. Support for J.H. was provided by NASA through the NASA Hubble Fellowship grant no. HST-HF2-51460.001-A awarded by the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., for NASA, under contract no. NAS5-26555. This work was supported by a grant from the Simons Foundation 686302 and by an award from the Simons Foundation 321183FY19 (to K.I.Ö.). This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under grant no. AST-1907832. J.D.I. acknowledges support from an STFC Ernest Rutherford Fellowship (no. ST/W004119/1) and a University Academic Fellowship from the University of Leeds. C.W. acknowledges financial support from the University of Leeds, the Science and Technology Facilities Council and UK Research and Innovation (grant nos. ST/T000287/1 and MR/T040726/1). V.V.G. gratefully acknowledges support from FONDECYT Regular 1221352, ANID BASAL projects nos. ACE210002 and FB210003, and ANID – Millennium Science Initiative Program – NCN19_171. We thank T. Harries for help with and providing access to the TORUS modelling program.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

    Jenny K. Calahan, Edwin A. Bergin, Arthur D. Bosman, Evan A. Rich & Jane Huang

  2. Center for Astrophysics ∣ Harvard & Smithsonian, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Sean M. Andrews, Charles J. Law, Karin I. Öberg & David J. Wilner

  3. University of Chicago Department of the Geophysical Sciences, Chicago, IL, USA

    Jennifer B. Bergner

  4. Department of Astronomy, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA

    L. Ilsedore Cleeves

  5. Instituto de Astrofísica, Ponticia Universidad Católica de Chile, Macul, Santiago, Chile

    Viviana V. Guzmán

  6. Núcleo Milenio de Formación Planetaria (NPF), Santiago, Chile

    Viviana V. Guzmán

  7. School of Physics & Astronomy, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK

    John D. Ilee & Catherine Walsh

  8. IRAP, Université de Toulouse, CNRS, CNES, Toulouse, France

    Romane Le Gal

  9. IPAG, Université Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, IPAG, Grenoble, France

    Romane Le Gal

  10. IRAM, Saint-Martin d’Hères, France

    Romane Le Gal

  11. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Richard Teague

  12. Department of Astronomy, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA

    Ke Zhang

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Contributions

J.K.C. is the lead author, produced thermochemical models and led the group effort to put forward this new chemical theory. E.A.B. contributed to the text, provided advisement throughout the modelling process, contributed heavily to the scientific theory, and is a principle investigator of the large observing programme these models and theory rely on. A.D.B contributed to the text, provided advisement throughout the modelling process, and contributed heavily to the scientific theory and the SED modelling. E.A.R. contributed to the text and provided and contributed to the SED modelling. K.I.Ö. and V.V.G. contributed to the text and discussion on the scientific theory, and are principle investigators of the large observing programme these models and theory rely on. C.W. contributed to the text and discussion on the scientific theory, compiled the gas-grain chemical network and is a PI of the large observing programme these models and theory rely on. S.M.A., J.B.B., L.I.C., J.H., J.D.I., C.J.L, R.LG., R.T., D.J.W. and K.Z. contributed significantly to discussion of the theory and writing and editing of the text.

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Correspondence to Jenny K. Calahan.

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Calahan, J.K., Bergin, E.A., Bosman, A.D. et al. UV-driven chemistry as a signpost of late-stage planet formation. Nat Astron 7, 49–56 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-022-01831-8

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