Imaging the water snowline in a protostellar envelope with H¹³CO^+★,★★

¹ Leiden Observatory, Leiden University, PO Box 9513, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands
e-mail: vthoff@strw.leidenuniv.nl
² Department of Space, Earth and Environment, Chalmers University of Technology, Onsala Space Observatory, 439 92 Onsala, Sweden
³ INAF, Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri, Largo E. Fermi 5, 50125 Firenze, Italy
⁴ Centre for Star and Planet Formation, Niels Bohr Institute & Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Øster Voldgade 5–7, 1350 Copenhagen K, Denmark
⁵ European Southern Observatory, Karl-Schwarzschild-Str. 2, 85748 Garching, Germany
⁶ Department of Astronomy, University of Michigan, 1085 S. University Ave., Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1107, USA
⁷ Max-Planck-Institut für Extraterrestrische Physik, Giessenbachstrasse 1, 85748 Garching, Germany

Received: 27 July 2017
Accepted: 3 January 2018

Abstract

Context. Snowlines are key ingredients for planet formation. Providing observational constraints on the locations of the major snowlines is therefore crucial for fully connecting planet compositions to their formation mechanism. Unfortunately, the most important snowline, that of water, is very difficult to observe directly in protoplanetary disks because of the close proximity of this snowline to the central star.

Aims. Based on chemical considerations, HCO⁺ is predicted to be a good chemical tracer of the water snowline because it is particularly abundant in dense clouds when water is frozen out. This work aims to map the optically thin isotopolog H¹³CO⁺ toward the envelope of the low-mass protostar NGC 1333-IRAS2A, where the snowline is at a greater distance from the star than in disks. Comparison with previous observations of H₂¹⁸O show whether H¹³CO⁺ is indeed a good tracer of the water snowline.

Methods. NGC 1333-IRAS2A was observed using the NOrthern Extended Millimeter Array (NOEMA) at ~0.′′9 resolution, targeting the H¹³CO⁺ J = 3 − 2 transition at 260.255 GHz. The integrated emission profile was analyzed using 1D radiative transfer modeling of a spherical envelope with a parametrized abundance profile for H¹³CO⁺. This profile was validated with a full chemical model.

Results. The H¹³CO⁺ emission peaks ~ 2′′ northeast of the continuum peak, whereas H₂¹⁸O shows compact emission on source. Quantitative modeling shows that a decrease in H¹³CO⁺ abundance by at least a factor of six is needed in the inner ~360 AU to reproduce the observed emission profile. Chemical modeling indeed predicts a steep increase in HCO⁺ just outside the water snowline; the 50% decrease in gaseous H₂O at the snowline is not enough to allow HCO⁺ to be abundant. This places the water snowline at 225 AU, further away from the star than expected based on the 1D envelope temperature structure for NGC 1333-IRAS2A. In contrast, DCO⁺ observations show that the CO snowline is at the expected location, making an outburst scenario unlikely.

Conclusions. The spatial anticorrelation of H¹³CO⁺ and H₂¹⁸O emission provide proof of concept that H¹³CO⁺ can be used as a tracer of the water snowline.