ALMA surveys have shown that CO emission in protoplanetary disks is much fainter than expected. Accordingly, CO-based gas masses and gas/dust ratios are orders of magnitude lower than previously thought. This may be explained either as fast gas dispersal, or as chemical evolution and locking up of volatiles in larger bodies leading to the low observed CO fluxes. The latter processes lead to enhanced C/O ratios in the gas, which may be reflected in enhanced abundances of molecules like C2H. The goal of this work is to employ C2H observations to understand whether low CO fluxes are caused by volatile depletion, or by fast gas dissipation. We present ALMA Cycle 4 C2H observations of a subsample of nine sources in Lupus. The integrated C2H emission is determined and compared to previous CO observations and model predictions. Seven out of nine disks are detected in C2H, whose line emission is almost as bright as 13CO. All detections are significantly brighter than the typical sensitivity of the observations, hinting at a bimodal distribution of the C2H line intensities. When compared with DALI models, the observed C2H fluxes can be reproduced only if some level of volatile carbon and oxygen depletion is allowed and C/O>1 in the gas. Models with reduced gas/dust ratios fail instead to reproduce the observations. A steeper than linear correlation between C2H and CN emission line is found. This is linked to the fact that C2H emission lines are affected more strongly by C/O variations than CN lines. Ring-like structures are detected both in C2H and in continuum emission but, as for CN, they do not seem to be connected. Sz 71 shows ring shaped emission in both C2H and CN with the location of the peak intensity coinciding. Our new ALMA C2H observations favour volatile carbon and oxygen depletion rather than fast gas dispersal to explain the faint CO observations for most of the disks.
We present the first ALMA survey of protoplanetary discs at 3 mm, targeting 36 young stellar objects in the Lupus star-forming region with deep observations (sensitivity 20-50 microJy/beam) at ~0.35" resolution (~50 au). Building on previous ALMA surveys at 0.89 and 1.3 mm that observed the complete sample of Class II discs in Lupus at a comparable resolution, we aim to assess the level of grain growth in the relatively young Lupus region. We measure 3 mm integrated fluxes, from which we derive disc-averaged 1-3 mm spectral indices. We find that the mean spectral index of the observed Lupus di…
The formation of planets strongly depends on the total amount as well as on the spatial distribution of solids in protoplanetary disks. Thanks to the improvements in resolution and sensitivity provided by ALMA, measurements of the surface density of mm-sized grains are now possible on large samples of disks. Such measurements provide statistical constraints that can be used to inform our understanding of the initial conditions of planet formation. We analyze spatially resolved observations of 36 protoplanetary disks in the Lupus star forming complex from our ALMA survey at 890 micron, aiming t…
Accurate disk mass measurements are necessary to constrain disk evolution and the timescale of planet formation, but such measurements are difficult to make and are very dependent on assumptions. Here we look at the assumption that the disk is optically thin at radio wavelengths and the effect of this assumption on measurements of disk dust mass. We model the optical to radio spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of 41 protoplanetary disks located in the young (~1-3 Myr old) Lupus star-forming region, including 0.89 mm, 1.33 mm, and 3 mm flux densities when available. We measure disk dust masse…
The cyanide radical CN is abundant in protoplanetary disks, with line fluxes often comparable to those of $^{13}$CO. It is known to be sensitive to UV irradiation of the upper disk atmosphere, with models predicting ring-shaped emission. We seek to characterize the CN emission from 94 Class II disks in the Lupus star forming region, compare it to observations in other regions, and interpret our observations with a grid of models. The CN emission morphology is discussed for two primordial disks, Sz 71 and Sz 98, and modeled in more detail. ALMA observed CN N=3-2 in Lupus disks down to sensitivi…
Gas mass is a fundamental quantity of protoplanetary disks that directly relates to their ability to form planets. Because we are unable to observe the bulk H$_2$ content of disks directly, we rely on indirect tracers to provide quantitative mass estimates. Current estimates for the gas masses of the observed disk population in the Lupus star-forming region are based on measurements of isotopologues of CO. However, without additional constraints, the degeneracy between H$_2$ mass and the elemental composition of the gas leads to large uncertainties in such estimates. Here we explore the gas co…
HD\,139614 is known to be a $\sim$14-Myr-old, possibly pre-main-sequence star in the Sco-Cen OB association in the Upper Centaurus-Lupus subgroup, with a slightly warped circumstellar disc containing ring structures hinting at one or more planets. The star's chemical abundance pattern is metal-deficient except for volatile elements, which places it in the $λ$ Boo class and suggests it has recently accreted gas-rich but dust-poor material. We identify seven dipole and four radial pulsation modes among its $δ$ Sct pulsations using the TESS light curve and an échelle diagram. Precision modelling …
We present results from a near-infrared (NIR) adaptive optics (AO) survey of pre-main-sequence stars in the Lupus Molecular Cloud with VLT/NACO to identify (sub)stellar companions down to $\sim$20 au separation and investigate the effects of multiplicity on circumstellar disc properties. We observe for the first time in the NIR with AO a total of 47 targets and complement our observations with archival data for another 58 objects previously observed with the same instrument. All 105 targets have millimetre ALMA data available, which provide constraints on disc masses and sizes. We identify a t…
Recent ALMA surveys of protoplanetary disks have shown that for most disks the extent of the gas emission is greater than the extent of the thermal emission of the millimeter-sized dust. Both line optical depth and the combined effect of radially dependent grain growth and radial drift may contribute to this observed effect. For a sample of 10 disks from the Lupus survey we investigate how well dust-based models without radial dust evolution reproduce the observed 12CO outer radius, and determine whether radial dust evolution is required to match the observed gas-dust size difference. We used …
We perform a comprehensive demographic study of the CO extent relative to dust of the disk population in the Lupus clouds, in order to find indications of dust evolution and possible correlations with other properties. We increase up to 42 the number of disks of the region with measured CO and dust sizes ($R_{\mathrm{CO}}$, $R_{\mathrm{dust}}$) from observations with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). The sizes are obtained from modeling the ${^{12}}$CO $J = 2-1$ line emission and continuum emission at $\sim 0.89$ mm with an empirical function (Nuker profile or Gaussian f…
We present ATCA results of a 3 and 7 mm continuum survey of 20 T Tauri stars in the Chamaeleon and Lupus star forming regions. This survey aims to identify protoplanetary discs with signs of grain growth. We detected 90% of the sources at 3 and 7 mm, and determined the spectral slopes, dust opacity indices and dust disc masses. We also present temporal monitoring results of a small sub-set of sources at 7, 15 mm and 3+6 cm to investigate grain growth to cm sizes and constrain emission mechanisms in these sources. Additionally, we investigated the potential correlation between grain growth sign…
Recent observations have uncovered a correlation between the accretion rates (measured from the UV continuum excess) of protoplanetary discs and their masses inferred from observations of the sub-mm continuum. While viscous evolution models predict such a correlation, the predicted values are in tension with data obtained from the Lupus and Upper Scorpius star forming regions; for example, they underpredict the scatter in accretion rates, particularly in older regions. Here we argue that since the sub-mm observations trace the discs' dust, by explicitly modelling the dust grain growth, evoluti…
Class III stars are those in star forming regions without large non-photospheric infrared emission, suggesting recent dispersal of their protoplanetary disks. We observed 30 class III stars in the 1-3 Myr Lupus region with ALMA at ${\sim}856μ$m, resulting in 4 detections that we attribute to circumstellar dust. Inferred dust masses are $0.036{-}0.093M_\oplus$, ${\sim}1$ order of magnitude lower than any previous measurements; one disk is resolved with radius ${\sim}80$ au. Two class II sources in the field of view were also detected, and 11 other sources, consistent with sub-mm galaxy number c…
Extensive surveys of star-forming regions with Spitzer have revealed populations of disk-bearing young stellar objects. These have provided crucial constraints, such as the timescale of dispersal of protoplanetary disks, obtained by carefully combining infrared data with spectroscopic or X-ray data. While observations in various regions agree with the general trend of decreasing disk fraction with age, the Lupus V and VI regions appeared to have been at odds, having an extremely low disk fraction. Here we show, using the recent Gaia data release 2 (DR2), that these extremely low disk fractions…
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…
We performed very deep searches for 2 ground-state water transitions in 13 protoplanetary disks with the HIFI instrument on-board the Herschel Space Observatory, with integration times up to 12 hours per line. Two other water transitions that sample warmer gas were also searched for with shallower integrations. The detection rate is low, and the upper limits provided by the observations are generally much lower than predictions of thermo-chemical models with canonical inputs. One ground-state transition is newly detected in the stacked spectrum of AA Tau, DM Tau, LkCa 15, and MWC 480. We run a…
The volatile composition of a planet is determined by the inventory of gas and ice in the parent disk. The volatile chemistry in the disk is expected to evolve over time, though this evolution is poorly constrained observationally. We present ALMA observations of C18O, C2H, and the isotopologues H13CN, HC15N, and DCN towards five Class 0/I disk candidates. Combined with a sample of fourteen Class II disks presented in Bergner et al. (2019b), this data set offers a view of volatile chemical evolution over the disk lifetime. Our estimates of C18O abundances are consistent with a rapid depletion …
An era has started in which gas and dust can be observed independently in protoplanetary disks, thanks to the recent surveys with ALMA. The first near-complete high-resolution disk survey in both dust and gas in a single star-forming region has been carried out in Lupus, finding surprisingly low gas/dust ratios. The goal of this work is to fully exploit CO isotopologues observations in Lupus, comparing them with physical-chemical model results, in order to obtain gas masses for a large number of disks. We have employed physical-chemical models to analyze continuum and CO isotopologues observat…
We investigate the relation between disk mass and mass accretion rate to constrain the mechanism of angular momentum transport in protoplanetary disks. Dust mass and mass accretion rate in Chamaeleon I are correlated with a slope close to linear, similar to the one recently identified in Lupus. We investigate the effect of stellar mass and find that the intrinsic scatter around the best-fit Mdust-Mstar and Macc-Mstar relations is uncorrelated. Disks with a constant alpha viscosity can fit the observed relations between dust mass, mass accretion rate, and stellar mass, but over-predict the stre…
New data from the Herschel Space Observatory are broadening our understanding of the physics and evolution of the outer regions of protoplanetary disks in star forming regions. In particular they prove to be useful to identify transitional disk candidates. The goals of this work are to complement the detections of disks and the identification of transitional disk candidates in the Lupus clouds with data from the Herschel Gould Belt Survey. We extracted photometry at 70, 100, 160, 250, 350 and 500 $μ$m of all spectroscopically confirmed Class II members previously identified in the Lupus region…
Recent observations show that the CO gas abundance, relative to H$_2$, in many 1-10 Myr old protoplanetary disks may be heavily depleted, by a factor of 10-100 compared to the canonical interstellar medium value of 10$^{-4}$. When and how this depletion happens can significantly affect compositions of planetesimals and atmospheres of giant planets. It is therefore important to constrain if the depletion occurs already at the earliest protostellar disk stage. Here we present spatially resolved observations of C$^{18}$O, C$^{17}$O, and $^{13}$C$^{18}$O $J$=2-1 lines in three protostellar disks. …
CO is thought to be the main reservoir of volatile carbon in protoplanetary disks, and thus the primary initial source of carbon in the atmospheres of forming giant planets. However, recent observations of protoplanetary disks point towards low volatile carbon abundances in many systems, including at radii interior to the CO snowline. One potential explanation is that gas phase carbon is chemically reprocessed into less volatile species, which are frozen on dust grain surfaces as ice. This mechanism has the potential to change the primordial C/H ratio in the gas. However, current observations …
In recent ALMA surveys, the gas distributions and velocity structures of most of the protoplanetary disks can still not be imaged at high S/N due to the short integration time. In this work, we re-analyzed the ALMA 13CO (3-2) and C18O (3-2) data of 88 young stellar objects in Lupus with the velocity-aligned stacking method to enhance S/N and to study the kinematics and disk properties traced by molecular lines. This method aligns spectra at different positions in a disk based on the projected Keplerian velocities at their positions and then stacks them. This method enhances the S/N ratios of m…
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…
The volatile contents of protoplanetary disks both set the potential for planetary chemistry and provide valuable probes of defining disk system characteristics such as stellar mass, gas mass, ionization, and temperature structure. Current disk molecular inventories are fragmented, however, giving an incomplete picture: unbiased spectral line surveys are needed to assess the volatile content. We present here an overview of such a survey of the protoplanetary disks around the Herbig Ae star MWC 480 and the T Tauri star LkCa 15 in ALMA Band 7, spanning $\sim$36 GHz from 275--317 GHz and represen…
A key problem in protoplanetary disc evolution is understanding the efficiency of dust radial drift. This process makes the observed dust disc sizes shrink on relatively short timescales, implying that discs started much larger than what we see now. In this paper we use an independent constraint, the gas radius (as probed by CO rotational emission), to test disc evolution models. In particular, we consider the ratio between the dust and gas radius, $R_{\rm CO}/R_{\rm dust}$. We model the time evolution of protoplanetary discs under the influence of viscous evolution, grain growth, and radial d…
The mass of a protoplanetary disk limits the formation and future growth of any planet. Masses of protoplanetary disks are usually calculated from measurements of the dust continuum emission by assuming an interstellar gas-to-dust ratio. To investigate the utility of CO as an alternate probe of disk mass, we use ALMA to survey $^{13}$CO and C$^{18}$O J = $3-2$ line emission from a sample of 93 protoplanetary disks around stars and brown dwarfs with masses from 0.03 -- 2 M$_{\odot}$ in the nearby Chamaeleon I star-forming region. We detect $^{13}$CO emission from 17 sources and C$^{18}$O from o…
We present the largest sample of brown dwarf (BD) protoplanetary disk spectral energy distributions modeled to date. We compile 49 objects with ALMA observations from four star-forming regions: $ρ$ Ophiuchus, Taurus, Lupus, and Upper Scorpius. Studying multiple regions with various ages enables us to probe disk evolution over time. Specifically, from our models we obtain values for dust grain sizes, dust settling, and disk mass; we compare how each of these parameters vary between the regions. We find that disk mass decreases with age. We also find evidence of disk evolution (i.e., grain growt…
A large fraction of observed protoplanetary disks in nearby Star-Forming Regions (SFRs) are fainter than expected in CO isotopologue emission. Disks not detected in 13CO line emission are also faint and often unresolved in the continuum emission at an angular resolution of around 0.2 arcseconds. Focusing on the Lupus SFR, the aim of this work is to investigate whether the population of CO-faint disks comprises radially extended and low mass disks - as commonly assumed so far - or if it is of intrinsically radially compact disks, an interpretation that we propose in this paper. The latter scena…
The collapse of interstellar gaseous clouds towards a protostar leads to the formation of accretion disks around the central star. Such disks can be dynamically stable if they settle in an axisymmetric state. In this letter, we investigate the long-term stability of astrophysical viscous disks around various protostars. We apply an implicit numerical code which solves the equations of radiation hydrodynamics and treats turbulence-induced viscosity according to the $α$-viscosity model. We show how the viscosity is related to the disk mass. A stability criterion to determine the maximum disk mas…
Volatile species in protoplanetary discs can undergo a phase change from vapour to solid. These "snow-lines" can play vital roles in planet formation at all scales, from dust coagulation to planetary migration. In the outer regions of protoplanetary discs, the temperature profile is set by the absorption of reprocessed stellar light by the solids. Further, the temperature profile sets the distribution of solids through sublimation and condensation at various snow-lines. Hence the snow-line position depends on the temperature profile and vice-versa. We show that this coupling can be thermally u…
The composition of gas and solids in protoplanetary discs sets the composition of planets that form out of them. Recent chemical models have shown that the composition of gas and dust in discs evolves on Myr time-scales, with volatile species disappearing from the gas phase. However, discs evolve due to gas accretion and radial drift of dust on time-scales similar to these chemical time-scales. Here we present the first model coupling the chemical evolution in the disc mid-planes with the evolution of discs due to accretion and radial drift of dust. Our models show that transport will always o…
A wide variety of ring-like dust structures has been detected in protoplanetary disks, but their origin and frequency are still unclear. We characterize the structure of an extended, multi-ringed disk discovered serendipitously in the ALMA Lupus disk survey and put it in the context of the Lupus disk population. ALMA observations in Band 6 at 234 GHz and Band 7 at 328 GHz at 0.3" resolution toward the K6 star V1094 Sco in Lupus III are presented, and its disk structure is analyzed. The spectral index $α_{mm}$ is determined in the inner 150 AU of the disk. The ALMA continuum data show a very ex…
In recent years, the disk populations in a number of young star-forming regions have been surveyed with ALMA. Understanding the disk properties and their correlation with those of the central star is critical to understand planet formation. In particular, a decrease of the average measured disk dust mass with the age of the region has been observed. We conducted high-sensitivity continuum ALMA observations of 43 Class II young stellar objects in CrA at 1.3 mm (230 GHz). The typical spatial resolution is 0.3". The continuum fluxes are used to estimate the dust masses of the disks, and a surviva…
We present new constraints on gas-phase C, N, and O abundances in the molecular layer of the IM Lup protoplanetary disk. Building on previous physical and chemical modeling of this disk, we use new ALMA observations of C$_2$H to constrain the C/O ratio in the molecular layer to be $\sim0.8$, i.e., higher than the solar value of $\sim0.54$. We use archival ALMA observations of HCN and H$^{13}$CN to show that no depletion of N is required (assuming an interstellar abundance of $7.5\times10^{-5}$ per H). These results suggest that an appreciable fraction of O is sequestered in water ice in large …
Observations of deuterium fractionation in the solar system, and in interstellar and circumstellar material, are commonly used to constrain the formation environment of volatiles. Toward protoplanetary disks, this approach has been limited by the small number of detected deuterated molecules, i.e. DCO$^+$ and DCN. Based on ALMA Cycle 2 observations toward the disk around the T Tauri star AS 209, we report the first detection of N$_2$D$^+$ (J=3-2) in a protoplanetary disk. These data are used together with previous Submillimeter Array observations of N$_2$H$^+$ (J=3-2) to estimate a disk-averag…
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 d…
The UV radiation field is a critical regulator of gas-phase chemistry in surface layers of disks around young stars. In an effort to understand the relationship between photocatalyzing UV radiation fields and gas emission observed at infrared and sub-mm wavelengths, we present an analysis of new and archival HST, Spitzer, ALMA, IRAM, and SMA data for five targets in the Lupus cloud complex and 14 systems in Taurus-Auriga. The HST spectra were used to measure LyA and FUV continuum fluxes reaching the disk surface, which are responsible for dissociating relevant molecular species (e.g. HCN, N2).…
Water and simple organic molecular ices dominate the mass of solid materials available for planetesimal and planet formation beyond the water snow line. Here we analyze ALMA long baseline 2.9, 1.3 and 0.87 mm continuum images of the young star HL Tau, and suggest that the emission dips observed are due to rapid pebble growth around the condensation fronts of abundant volatile species. Specifically, we show that the prominent innermost dip at 13 AU is spatially resolved in the 0.87 mm image, and its center radius is coincident with the expected mid-plane condensation front of water ice. In addi…
The dominant reservoirs of elemental nitrogen in protoplanetary disks have not yet been observationally identified. Likely candidates are HCN, NH$_3$ and N$_2$. The relative abundances of these carriers determine the composition of planetesimals as a function of disk radius due to strong differences in their volatility. A significant sequestration of nitrogen in carriers less volatile than N$_2$ is likely required to deliver even small amounts of nitrogen to the Earth and potentially habitable exo-planets. While HCN has been detected in small amounts in inner disks ($<10$ au), so far only rela…
A relation between the mass accretion rate onto the central young star and the mass of the surrounding protoplanetary disk has long been theoretically predicted and observationally sought. For the first time, we have accurately and homogeneously determined the photospheric parameters, mass accretion rate, and disk mass for an essentially complete sample of young stars with disks in the Lupus clouds. Our work combines the results of surveys conducted with VLT/X-Shooter and ALMA. With this dataset we are able to test a basic prediction of viscous accretion theory, the existence of a linear relat…
We investigate the chemistry in a radiation-hydrodynamics model of star-forming core which evolves from a cold ($\sim 10$ K) prestellar core to the main accretion phase in $\sim 10^5$ yr. A rotationally-supported gravitationally unstable disk is formed around a protostar. We extract the temporal variation of physical parameters in $\sim 1.5 \times 10^3$ SPH particles which end up in the disk, and perform post-processing calculations of the gas-grain chemistry adopting a three-phase model. Inside the disk, the SPH particles migrate both inward and outward. Since a significant fraction of volati…
Despite intensive studies of protoplanetary disks, there is still no reliable way to determine their total mass and their surface density distribution, quantities that are crucial for describing both the structure and the evolution of disks up to the formation of planets. The goal of this work is to use less abundant CO isotopologues, whose detection is routine for ALMA, to infer the gas mass of disks. Isotope-selective effects need to be taken into account in the analysis, because they can significantly modify CO isotopologues line intensities. CO isotope-selective photodissociation has been …
The distributions and abundances of molecules in protoplanetary disks are powerful tracers of the physical and chemical disk structures. The abundance ratios of HCN and its isomer HNC are known to be sensitive to gas temperature. Their line ratios might therefore offer a unique opportunity to probe the properties of the emitting gas. Using the 2D thermochemical code DALI, we ran a set of disk models accounting for different stellar and disk properties, with an updated chemical network for the nitrogen chemistry. These modeling results were then compared with observations, including new ALMA ob…
The latest observation of HL Tau by ALMA revealed spectacular concentric dust rings in its circumstellar disk. We attempt to explain the multiple ring structure as a consequence of aggregate sintering. Sintering is known to reduce the sticking efficiency of dust aggregates and occurs at temperatures slightly below the sublimation point of their constituent material. We here present a dust growth model incorporating sintering and use it to simulate global dust evolution due to sintering, coagulation, fragmentation, and radial inward drift in a modeled HL Tau disk. We show that aggregates consis…
It is still unclear whether the evolution of protoplanetary disks, a key ingredient in the theory of planet formation, is driven by viscous turbulence or magnetic disk winds. As viscously evolving disks expand outward over time, the evolution of disk sizes is a discriminant test for studying disk evolution. However, it is unclear how the observed disk size changes over time if disk evolution is driven by magnetic disk winds. Combining the thermochemical code DALI with the analytical wind-driven disk evolution model presented in Tabone et al. (2021a), we study the time evolution of the observed…
It is key to constrain the gas surface density distribution, Sigma_gas, as function of disk radius in protoplanetary disks. In this work we investigate if spatially resolved observations of rarer CO isotopologues may be good tracers of Sigma_gas. Physical-chemical models with different input Sigma_gas(R) are run. The input disk surface density profiles are compared with the simulated 13CO intensity radial profiles to check if and where the two follow each other. There is always an intermediate region in the disk where the slope of the 13CO radial emission profile and Sigma_gas(R) coincide. At …
Star formation often occurs within or nearby stellar clusters. Irradiation by nearby massive stars can photoevaporate protoplanetary disks around young stars (so-called proplyds) which raises questions regarding the ability of planet formation to take place in these environments. We investigate the two-dimensional physical and chemical structure of a protoplanetary disk surrounding a low-mass (T Tauri) star which is irradiated by a nearby massive O-type star to determine the survivability and observability of molecules in proplyds. Compared with an isolated star-disk system, the gas temperatur…
