Constraints on the radial distribution of the dust properties in the CQ Tauri protoplanetary disk

¹ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Bologna, viale Berti Pichat 6/2, 40127 Bologna, Italy
e-mail: francesco.trotta4@unibo.it
² Dipartimento di Fisica e Astrofisica, Universitá degli Studi di Firenze, Largo E. Fermi 2, 50125 Firenze, Italy
³ INAF – Osservatorio astrofisico di Arcetri, Largo E. Fermi 5, 50125 Firenze, Italy
⁴ ESO, Karl Schwarzschild str. 2, 85748 Garching bei Muenchen, Germany
⁵ Excellence Cluster Universe, Boltzmannstr. 2, 85748 Garching, Germany
⁶ Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, School of Cosmic Physics, 31 Fitzwilliam Place, Dublin 2, Ireland
⁷ Division of Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy, California Institute of Technology, MC 249-17, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA

Received: 15 May 2013
Accepted: 26 July 2013

Abstract

Context. Grain growth in protoplanetary disks is the first step towards the formation of the rocky cores of planets. Models predict that grains grow, migrate, and fragment in the disk and predict varying dust properties as a function of radius, age, and physical properties. High-angular resolution observations at more than one (sub-)mm wavelength are the essential tool for constraining grain growth and migration on the disk midplane.

Aims. We developed a procedure to analyze self-consistently multiwavelength (sub-)mm continuum interferometric observations of protoplanetary disks to constrain the radial distribution of dust properties.

Methods. We apply this technique to existing multifrequency continuum mm observations of the disk around CQ Tau, a A8 pre-main sequence star with a well-studied disk.

Results. We demonstrate that our models can be used to simultaneously constrain the disk and dust structure. In CQ Tau, the best-fitting model has a radial dependence of the maximum grain size, which decreases from a few cm in the inner disk (<40 AU) to a few mm at 80 AU. Nevertheless, the currently available dataset does not allow us to exclude the possibility of a uniform grain size distribution at a 3σ level.