Identification of new transitional disk candidates in Lupus with Herschel^⋆,⋆⋆

¹ European Space Astronomy Centre (ESA), PO Box, 78, 28691 Villanueva de la Cañada, Madrid, Spain
e-mail: ibustamante@cab.inta-csic.es
² Centro de Astrobiología, INTA-CSIC, PO Box – Apdo. de correos 78, 28691 Villanueva de la Cañada Madrid, Spain
³ ISDEFE – ESAC, PO Box 78, 28691 Villanueva de la Cañada, Madrid, Spain
⁴ ESA Science Support Office, ESTEC/SRE-S, Keplerlaan 1, 2201 AZ Noordwijk, The Netherlands
⁵ Laboratoire AIM Paris, Saclay, CEA/DSM, CNRS, Université Paris Diderot, IRFU, Service d’Astrophysique, Centre d’Études de Saclay, Orme des Merisiers, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette, France

Received: 25 April 2014
Accepted: 15 January 2015

Abstract

Context. 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 for identifying transitional disk candidates.

Aims. 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.

Methods. We extracted photometry at 70, 100, 160, 250, 350, and 500 μm of all spectroscopically confirmed Class II members previously identified in the Lupus regions and analyzed their updated spectral energy distributions.

Results. We have detected 34 young disks in Lupus in at least one Herschel band, from an initial sample of 123 known members in the observed fields. Using recently defined criteria, we have identified five transitional disk candidates in the region. Three of them are new to the literature. Their PACS-70 μm fluxes are systematically higher than those of normal T Tauri stars in the same associations, as already found in T Cha and in the transitional disks in the Chamaeleon molecular cloud.

Conclusions. Herschel efficiently complements mid-infrared surveys for identifying transitional disk candidates and confirms that these objects seem to have substantially different outer disks than the T Tauri stars in the same molecular clouds.