Issue |
A&A
Volume 570, October 2014
|
|
---|---|---|
Article Number | L9 | |
Number of page(s) | 5 | |
Section | Letters | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201424630 | |
Published online | 21 October 2014 |
Constraints on photoevaporation models from (lack of) radio emission in the Corona Australis protoplanetary disks⋆
1
European Southern Observatory,
Karl-Schwarzschild-Str. 2,
85748
Garching,
Germany
e-mail:
r.galvan@crya.unam.mx; rgalvan@eso.org
2
Centro de Radioastronomía y Astrofísica, Universidad Nacional
Autónoma de México, 58090
Morelia,
Mexico
3
Academia Sinica, Institute of Astronomy and
Astrophysics, PO Box
23-141, Taipei
106,
Taiwan
4
Department of Astrophysics, University of Vienna,
Türkenschanzstraße 17,
1180
Vienna,
Austria
5
Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, University of
Arizona, Tucson,
AZ
85721,
USA
6
Joint Institute for VLBI in Europe, Postbus 2, 7990 AA
Dwingeloo, The
Netherlands
7
INAF-Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri, Largo E.
Fermi, 50125
Firenze,
Italy
8
Excellence Cluster Universe, Boltzmannstr. 2, 85748
Garching,
Germany
Received: 18 July 2014
Accepted: 24 September 2014
Photoevaporation due to high-energy stellar photons is thought to be one of the main drivers of protoplanetary disk dispersal. The fully or partially ionized disk surface is expected to produce free-free continuum emission at centimeter (cm) wavelengths that can be routinely detected with interferometers such as the upgraded Very Large Array (VLA). We use deep (rms noise down to 8 μJy beam-1 in the field of view center) 3.5 cm maps of the nearby (130 pc) Corona Australis (CrA) star formation (SF) region to constrain disk photoevaporation models. We find that the radio emission from disk sources in CrA is surprisingly faint. Only three out of ten sources within the field of view are detected, with flux densities of about 102 μJy. However, a significant fraction of their emission is nonthermal. Typical upper limits for nondetections are 3σ ~ 60 μJy beam-1. Assuming analytic expressions for the free-free emission from extreme-UV (EUV) irradiation, we derive stringent upper limits to the ionizing photon luminosity that impinges on the disk surface ΦEUV < 1−4 × 1041 s-1. These limits constrain ΦEUV to the low end of the values needed by EUV-driven photoevaporation models to clear protoplanetary disks within the observed few Myr timescale. Therefore, at least in CrA, EUV-driven photoevaporation is unlikely to be the main agent of disk dispersal. We also compare the observed X-ray luminosities LX of disk sources with models in which photoevaporation is driven by such photons. Although predictions are less specific than for the EUV case, most of the observed fluxes (upper limits) are roughly consistent with the (scaled) predictions. Deeper observations, as well as predictions spanning a wider parameter space, are needed to properly test X-ray driven photoevaporation.
Key words: protoplanetary disks / stars: formation / stars: pre-main sequence
Appendix A is available in electronic form at http://www.aanda.org
© ESO, 2014
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