Sulfur is one of the most abundant elements in the Universe, with important roles in astro-, geo-, and biochemistry. Its main reservoirs in planet-forming disks have previously eluded detection: gaseous molecules only account for $<1\,$\% of total elemental sulfur, with the rest likely in either ices or refractory minerals. Mechanisms such as giant planets can filter out dust from gas accreting onto disk-hosting stars. For stars above 1.4 solar masses, this leaves a chemical signature on the stellar photosphere that can be used to determine the fraction of each element that is locked in dust. Here, we present an application of this method to sulfur, zinc, and sodium. We analyse the accretion-contaminated photospheres of a sample of young stars and find $(89\pm8)\,$\% of elemental sulfur is in refractory form in their disks. The main carrier is much more refractory than water ice, consistent with sulfide minerals such as FeS.
Water enhances the formation of refractory sulfur in interstellar ices
Centro de Astrobiología (CAB), INTA-CSIC（西班牙国家航空航天技术研究所-西班牙国家科学研究委员会天体生物学中心）；Departamento de Física de la Tierra y Astrofísica, Facultad de Ciencias Físicas, Universidad Complutense de Madrid（马德里康普顿斯大学物理科学学院地球与天体物理学系）；Instituto de Química Física Blas Cabrera (CSIC)（西班牙国家科学研究委员会布拉斯·卡布雷拉物理化学研究所）；Department of Physics, National Central University（中原大学物理系）
The Earth and other rocky bodies in the inner solar system contain significantly less carbon than the primordial materials that seeded their formation. These carbon-poor objects include the parent bodies of primitive meteorites, suggesting that at least one process responsible for solid-phase carbon depletion was active prior to the early stages of planet formation. Potential mechanisms include the erosion of carbonaceous materials by photons or atomic oxygen in the surface layers of the protoplanetary disk. Under photochemically generated favorable conditions, these reactions can deplete the …
The Earth is strongly depleted in carbon compared to the dust in the ISM, implying efficient removal of refractory carbon before parent body formation. It has been argued that grains get rid of their carbon through oxidation and photolysis in the exposed upper disk layers. We assess the efficacy of these C-removal mechanisms accounting for the vertical and radial transport of grains. We obtain the carbon and carbon free mass budget of solids by solving two 1D advection-diffusion equations, accounting for the dust grain size distribution and radial transport. The carbon removal acts on the frac…
We review models of chondrite component transport in the gaseous protoplanetary disk. Refractory inclusions were likely transported by turbulent diffusion and possible early disk expansion, and required low turbulence for their subsequent preservation in the disk, possibly in a dead zone. Chondrules were produced locally but did not necessarily accrete shortly after formation. Water may have been enhanced in the inner disk because of inward drift of solids from further out, but likely not by more than a factor of a few. Incomplete condensation in chondrites may be due to slow reaction kinetics…
Despite being all roughly of solar composition, primitive meteorites (chondrites) present a diversity in their chemical, isotopic and petrographic properties, and in particular a first-order dichotomy between carbonaceous and non-carbonaceous chondrites. We investigate here analytically the dynamics of their components (chondrules, refractory inclusions, metal/sulfide and matrix grains) in protoplanetary disks prior to their incorporation in chondrite parent bodies. We find the dynamics of the solids, subject to gas drag, to be essentially controlled by the "gas-solid decoupling parameter" $S\…
Calcium-Aluminum-rich Inclusions (CAIs), the oldest known solids of the solar system, show evidence for the past presence of short-lived radionuclide beryllium-10, which was likely produced by spallation during protosolar flares. While such $^{10}$Be production has hitherto been modeled at the inner edge of the protoplanetary disk, I calculate here that spallation at the disk surface may reproduce the measured $^{10}$Be/$^9$Be ratios at larger heliocentric distances. Beryllium-10 production in the gas prior to CAI formation would dominate that in the solid. Interestingly, provided the Sun's pr…
The Al/Si and Mg/Si ratios in non-carbonaceous chondrites are lower than the solar (i.e., CI-chondritic) values, in sharp contrast to the non-CI carbonaceous meteorites and the Earth, which are enriched in refractory elements and have Mg/Si ratios that are solar or larger. We show that the formation of a first generation of planetesimals during the condensation of refractory elements implies the subsequent formation of residual condensates with strongly sub-solar Al/Si and Mg/Si ratios. The mixing of residual condensates with different amounts of material with solar refractory/Si element ratio…
Whereas it is generally accepted that calcium-aluminum-rich inclusions (CAIs) from chondritic meteorites formed in a hot environment in the solar protoplanetary disk, the conditions of their formation remain debated. Recent laboratory studies of CAIs have provided new kind of data: their size distributions. We show that size distributions of CAIs measured in laboratory from sections of carbonaceous chondrites have a power law size distribution with cumulative size exponent between -1.7 and -1.9, which translates into cumulative size exponent between -2.5 and -2.8 after correction for sectionin…
The refractory fraction of phosphorus in planet-forming discs
Institute for Theoretical and Computation Physics, Graz University of Technology（格拉茨工业大学理论与计算物理研究所）；Tartu Observatory, University of Tartu（塔尔图大学塔尔图天文台）；Department of Physics and Astronomy, University College London（伦敦大学学院物理与天文学系）；Space Research Institute, Austrian Academy of Sciences（奥地利科学院空间研究所）
We propose the possibility of a new phenomenon affecting the settling of dust grains at the terrestrial region in early protoplanetary disks. Sinking dust grains evaporate in a hot inner region during the early stage of disk evolution, and the effects of condensation and evaporation on vertical dust settling can be significant. A 1-D dust settling model considering both physical and chemical aspects is presented in this paper. Modeling results show that dust grains evaporate as they descend into the hotter interior and form a "condensation front," above which dust-composing major elements, Mg,…
We study the content in S-bearing molecules of protoplanetary disks around low-mass stars. We used the new IRAM 30-m receiver EMIR to perform simultaneous observations of the $1_{10}-1_{01}$ line of H$_2$S at 168.8 GHz and $2_{23}-1_{12}$ line of SO at 99.3 GHz. We compared the observational results with predictions coming from the astrochemical code NAUTILUS, which has been adapted to protoplanetary disks. The data were analyzed together with existing CS J=3-2 observations. We fail to detect the SO and H$_2$S lines, although CS is detected in LkCa15, DM\,Tau, and GO\,Tau but not in MWC\,480. …
Context. Several sulfur-bearing molecules are observed in the interstellar medium and in comets, in strong contrast to protoplanetary disks where only CS, H$_2$CS and SO have been detected so far. Aims. We combine observations and chemical models to constrain the sulfur abundances and their sensitivity to physical and chemical conditions in the DM Tau protoplanetary disk. Methods. We obtained $0.5^{"}$ ALMA observations of DM Tau in Bands 4 and 6 in lines of CS, SO, SO$_2$, OCS, CCS, H$_2$CS and H$_2$S, achieving a $\sim 5$ mJy sensitivity. Using the non-LTE radiative transfer code RADEX and t…
JWST Reveals Refractory-Rich Water Ice in Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS: Evidence for a Continuum of Grain Properties across Protoplanetary Disks
Southwest Research Institute（西南研究院）；University of Maryland, College Park（马里兰大学帕克分校）；NASA Goddard Space Flight Center（美国宇航局戈达德太空飞行中心）；Catholic University of America（美利坚天主教大学）；Auburn University（奥本大学）；Universität Bern（伯尔尼大学）
Analyses of primitive meteorites and cometary samples have shown that the solar nebula must have experienced a phase of large-scale outward transport of small refractory grains as well as homogenization of initially spatially heterogeneous short-lived isotopes. The stable oxygen isotopes, however, were able to remain spatially heterogenous at the $\sim$ 6% level. One promising mechanism for achieving these disparate goals is the mixing and transport associated with a marginally gravitationally unstable (MGU) disk, a likely cause of FU Orionis events in young low-mass stars. Several new sets of…
Sulfur-bearing molecules play an important role in prebiotic chemistry and planet habitability. They are also proposed probes of chemical ages, elemental C/O ratio, and grain chemistry processing. Commonly detected in diverse astrophysical objects, including the Solar System, their distribution and chemistry remain, however, largely unknown in planet-forming disks. We present CS ($2-1$) observations at $\sim0."3$ resolution performed within the ALMA-MAPS Large Program toward the five disks around IM Lup, GM Aur, AS 209, HD 163296, and MWC 480. CS is detected in all five disks, displaying a var…
A primary goal of exoplanet characterization is to use a planet's current composition to understand how that planet formed. For example, the C/O ratio has long been recognized as carrying important information on the chemistry of volatile species. Refractory elements, like Fe, Mg, and Si, are usually not considered in this conversation because they condense into solids like Fe(s) or MgSiO$_3$ and would be removed from the observable, gaseous atmosphere in exoplanets cooler than about 2000~K. However, planets hotter than about 2000~K, called ultra-hot Jupiters (UHJs), are warm enough to largely…
Unveiling the Chemical Complexity and C/O Ratio of the HD 163296 Protoplanetary Disk: Constraints from Multi-line ALMA Observations of Organics, Nitriles, Sulfur-bearing, and Deuterated Molecules
Rocky asteroids and planets display nucleosynthetic isotope variations that are attributed to the heterogeneous distribution of stardust from different stellar sources in the solar protoplanetary disk. Here we report new high precision palladium isotope data for six iron meteorite groups, which display smaller nucleosynthetic isotope variations than the more refractory neighbouring elements. Based on this observation we present a new model in which thermal destruction of interstellar medium dust results in an enrichment of s-process dominated stardust in regions closer to the Sun. We propose t…
We present a comprehensive evolutionary model of the Sun's protoplanetary disk, constructed to resolve the "CAI Storage" problem of meteoritics. We predict the abundances of calcium-rich, aluminum-rich inclusions (CAIs) and refractory lithophile elements under the central assumption that Jupiter's $\sim 30 \, M_{\oplus}$ core forms at about 3 AU at around 0.6 Myr and opened a gap CAIs are trapped in the pressure maximum beyond Jupiter; carbonaceous chondrites formed there. Inside Jupiter's orbit, CAIs were depleted by aerodynamic drag; ordinary and enstatite chondrites formed there. For 16 cho…
Infrared observations probe the warm gas in the inner regions of planet-forming disks around young sun-like, T Tauri stars. In these systems, H$_2$O, OH, CO, CO$_2$, C$_2$H$_2$, and HCN have been widely observed. However, the potentially abundant carbon carrier CH$_4$ remains largely unconstrained. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will be able to characterize mid-infrared fluxes of CH$_4$ along with several other carriers of carbon and oxygen. In anticipation of the JWST mission, we model the physical and chemical structure of a T Tauri disk to predict the abundances and mid-infrared flux…
Calcium-aluminum-rich inclusions (CAIs) are the oldest solar system solids known in primitive meteorites (chondrites). They predate the other components by 1-2 Myr, and likely condensed within a short time interval, close to the Sun in the gaseous protoplanetary disk. Their preservation must counterbalance both the sunward drift caused by gas drag and the general inward motion of the entraining gas. We propose that an efficient outward transport of CAIs can be achieved by advection as a result of the viscous expansion of the disk, provided it is initially less than 10 AU in size, which we argu…
Relating planet formation to atmospheric composition has been a long-standing goal of the planetary science community. So far, most modeling studies have focused on predicting the enrichment of heavy elements and the C/O ratio in giant planet atmospheres. Although this framework provides useful constraints on the potential formation locations of gas giant exoplanets, carbon and oxygen measurements alone are not enough to determine where a given gas giant planet originated. Here, we show that characterizing the abundances of refractory elements (e.g., silicon, iron) can break these degeneracies…
The sulfur abundance is poorly known in most environments. Yet, deriving the sulfur abundance is key to understanding the evolution of the chemistry from molecular clouds to planetary atmospheres. We present observations of H$_2$S 110-101 at 168.763 GHz toward the Herbig Ae star AB Aur. We aim to study the abundance of sulfuretted species toward AB Aur and to constrain how different species and phases contribute to the sulfur budget. We present new NOrthern Extended Millimeter Array (NOEMA) interferometric observations of the continuum and H$_2$S 110-101 line at 168.763 GHz toward AB Aur. We d…
Context. Studying gas chemistry in protoplanetary disks is key to understanding the process of planet formation. Sulfur chemistry in particular is poorly understood in interstellar environments, and the location of the main reservoirs remains unknown. Protoplanetary disks in Taurus are ideal targets for studying the evolution of the composition of planet forming systems. Aims. We aim to elucidate the chemical origin of sulfur-bearing molecular emission in protoplanetary disks, with a special focus on H$_2$S emission, and to identify candidate species that could become the main molecular sulfur…
[Abridged] Combining a time-dependent astrochemical model with a model of planet formation and migration, we compute the carbon-to-oxygen ratio (C/O) of a range of planetary embryos starting their formation in the inner solar system (1-3 AU). The volatile and ice abundance of relevant carbon and oxygen bearing molecular species are determined through a complex chemical kinetic code which includes both gas and grain surface chemistry. This is combined with a model for the abundance of the refractory dust grains to compute the total carbon and oxygen abundance in the protoplanetary disk availabl…
Current models of (exo)planet formation often rely on a large influx of so-called `pebbles' from the outer disk into the planet formation region. In this paper, we investigate how the formation of pebbles in the cold outer regions of protoplanetary disks and their subsequent migration to the inner disk can alter the gas-phase CO distribution both interior and exterior to the midplane CO snowline. By simulating the resulting CO abundances in the midplane as well as the warm surface layer, we identify observable signatures of large-scale pebble formation and migration that can be used as `smokin…
Measuring the amount of gas and dust in protoplanetary disks is a key challenge in planet formation studies. Here we provide a new set of dust depletion factors and relative mass surface densities of gas and dust for the innermost regions of a sample of protoplanetary disks. We do this by combining stellar theory with observed refractory element abundances in both disk hosts and open cluster stars. Our results are independent of, and complementary to, those obtained from spatially resolved disk observations.
Compact Hydrogen Sulfide Emission Indicates Sulfur-bearing Ice Sublimation in the Inner Disk of HD 163296
RIKEN Pioneering Research Institute（RIKEN先锋研究所）；Department of Astronomy, Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo（东京大学大学院理学研究科天文学专攻）；NASA Hubble Fellowship Program Sagan Fellow（NASA哈勃博士后计划萨根研究员）；Department of Astronomy, University of Virginia（弗吉尼亚大学天文学系）；Center for Astrophysics — Harvard & Smithsonian（哈佛-史密森尼天体物理中心）；Institute for Astrophysical Research, Boston University（波士顿大学天体物理研究所）；National Astronomical Observatory of Japan（日本国立天文台）；Université Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, IPAG（格勒诺布尔阿尔卑斯大学、法国国家科学研究中心、IPAG实验室）；Institut de Radioastronomie Millimetrique (IRAM)（毫米波射电天文学研究所）；Department of Earth and Planetary Science, Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo（东京大学大学院理学研究科地球行星科学专攻）
Upcoming studies of extrasolar gas giants will give precise insights into the composition of planetary atmospheres with the ultimate goal to link it to the formation history of the planet. Here, we investigate how drifting and evaporating pebbles that enrich the gas phase of the disk influence the chemical composition of growing and migrating gas giants. To achieve this goal, we perform semi analytical 1D models of protoplanetary disks including viscous evolution, pebble drift and evaporation to simulate the growth of planets from planetary embryos to Jupiter mass objects by the accretion of p…
Chondrites are the likely building blocks of Earth, and identifying the group of chondrite that best represents Earth is a key to resolving the state of the early Earth. The origin of chondrites, however, remains controversial partly because of their puzzling major element compositions, some exhibiting depletion in Al, Ca, and Mg. Based on a new thermochemical evolution model of protoplanetary disks, we show that planetesimals with depletion patterns similar to ordinary and enstatite chondrites can originate at 1-2 AU just outside where enstatite evaporates. Around the "evaporation front" of e…
The Sun shows a $\sim 10$% depletion in refractory elements relative to nearby solar twins. It has been suggested that this depletion is a signpost of planet formation. The exoplanet statistics are now good enough to show that the origin of this depletion does not arise from the sequestration of refractory material inside the planets themselves. This conclusion arises because most sun-like stars host close-in planetary systems that are on average more massive than the Sun's. Using evolutionary models for the protoplanetary discs that surrounded the young Sun and solar twins we demonstrate that…
Here we aim to explore the origin of the strong C2H lines to reimagine the chemistry of protoplanetary disks. There are a few key aspects that drive our analysis. First, C2H is detected in young and old systems, hinting at a long-lived chemistry. Second, as a radical, C2H is rapidly destroyed, within <1000 yr. These two statements hint that the chemistry responsible for C2H emission must be predominantly in the gas-phase and must be in equilibrium. Combining new and published chemical models we find that elevating the total volatile (gas and ice) C/O ratio is the only natural way to create a l…
Meteoritic chondrules were formed in the early solar system by brief heating of silicate dust to melting temperatures. Some highly refractory grains (Type B calcium-aluminum-rich inclusions, CAIs) also show signs of transient heating. A similar process may occur in other protoplanetary disks, as evidenced by observations of spectra characteristic of crystalline silicates. One possible environment for this process is the turbulent magnetohydrodynamic flow thought to drive accretion in these disks. Such flows generally form thin current sheets, which are sites of magnetic reconnection, and dissi…
The ALMA View of the Edge-on Gomez's Hamburger System: A Highly-Dynamic, Asymmetric Protoplanetary Disk Reveals the Earliest Phases of Giant Planet Formation
University of Minnesota（明尼苏达大学）；University of Virginia（弗吉尼亚大学）；Massachusetts Institute of Technology（麻省理工学院）；Université Grenoble Alpes（格勒诺布尔阿尔卑斯大学）；CNRS（法国国家科学研究中心）；Institut de Radioastronomie Millimetrique (IRAM)（毫米波射电天文研究所）；Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian（哈佛-史密森天体物理中心）
Stars in the solar neighbourhood have refractory element ratios slightly different from the Sun. It is unclear how much the condensation of solids and thus the composition of planets forming around these stars is affected. We aim to understand the impact of changing the ratios of refractory elements Mg, Si, and Fe within the range observed in solar type stars within 150~pc on the composition of planets forming around them. We use the GGchem code to simulate the condensation of solids in protoplanetary disks with a Minimum Mass Solar Nebula around main sequence G-type stars in the Solar neighbo…
Ammonium salt formation and abundance in protoplanetary disks
Université Bordeaux, CNRS, Bordeaux INP, ISM, UMR 5255（波尔多大学）；Carl Sagan Center, SETI Institute（卡尔·萨根中心，SETI研究所）；NASA Ames Research Center（NASA艾姆斯研究中心）
