Temperature profiles of young disk-like structures

The case of IRAS 16293A^★

¹ Leiden Observatory, Leiden University, PO Box 9513, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands
e-mail: vthoff@strw.leidenuniv.nl
² Max-Planck-Institut für Extraterrestrische Physik, Giessenbachstrasse 1, 85748 Garching, Germany
³ Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Øster Voldgade 5–7, 1350 Copenhagen K., Denmark
⁴ Department of Space, Earth and Environment, Chalmers University of Technology, 41296 Gothenburg, Sweden

Received: 3 October 2019
Accepted: 1 November 2019

Abstract

Context. Temperature is a crucial parameter in circumstellar disk evolution and planet formation because it governs the resistance of the gas to gravitational instability and sets the chemical composition of the planet-forming material.

Aims. We set out to determine the gas temperature of the young disk-like structure around the Class 0 protostar IRAS 16293–2422A.

Methods. We used Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) observations of multiple H₂CS J = 7 − 6 and J = 10 − 9 lines from the Protostellar Interferometric Line Survey (PILS) to create a temperature map for the inner ~200 AU of the disk-like structure. This molecule is a particularly useful temperature probe because transitions between energy levels with different K_a quantum numbers operate only through collisions.

Results. Based on the H₂CS line ratios, the temperature is between ~100–175 K in the inner ~150 AU, and drops to ~75 K at ~200 AU. At the current resolution (0.5′′~70 AU), no jump is seen in the temperature at the disk–envelope interface.

Conclusions. The temperature structure derived from H₂CS is consistent with envelope temperature profiles that constrain the temperature from 1000 AU scales down to ~100 AU, but does not follow the temperature rise seen in these profiles at smaller radii. Higher angular resolution observations of optically thin temperature tracers are needed to establish whether cooling by gas-phase water, the presence of a putative disk, or the dust optical depth influences the gas temperature at ≲100 AU scales. The temperature at 100 AU is higher in IRAS 16293A than in the embedded Class 0/I disk L1527, consistent with the higher luminosity of the former.