Letter to the Editor

ALMA chemical survey of disk-outflow sources in Taurus (ALMA-DOT)

II. Vertical stratification of CO, CS, CN, H₂CO, and CH₃OH in a Class I disk^⋆

¹ INAF – Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri, Largo E. Fermi 5, 50125 Firenze, Italy
e-mail: lpodio@arcetri.astro.it
² Univ. Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, IPAG, 38000 Grenoble, France
³ INAF – Istituto di Radioastronomia & Italian ALMA Regional Centre, Via P. Gobetti 101, 40129 Bologna, Italy
⁴ Università degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia, Via G. Sansone 1, 50019 Sesto Fiorentino, Italy
⁵ European Southern Observatory, Karl-Schwarzschild-Strasse 2, 85748, Garching bei München, Germany
⁶ Excellence Cluster Origins, Boltzmannstrasse 2, 85748 Garching bei München, Germany

Received: 16 July 2020
Accepted: 17 August 2020

Abstract

The chemical composition of planets is inherited from that of the natal protoplanetary disk at the time of planet formation. Increasing observational evidence suggests that planet formation occurs in less than 1−2 Myr. This motivates the need for spatially resolved spectral observations of young Class I disks, as carried out by the ALMA chemical survey of Disk-Outflow sources in Taurus (ALMA-DOT). In the context of ALMA-DOT, we observe the edge-on disk around the Class I source IRAS 04302+2247 (the butterfly star) in the 1.3 mm continuum and five molecular lines. We report the first tentative detection of methanol (CH₃OH) in a Class I disk and resolve, for the first time, the vertical structure of a disk with multiple molecular tracers. The bulk of the emission in the CO 2−1, CS 5−4, and o–H₂CO 3_1, 2 − 2_1, 1 lines originates from the warm molecular layer, with the line intensity peaking at increasing disk heights, z, for increasing radial distances, r. Molecular emission is vertically stratified, with CO observed at larger disk heights (aperture z/r ∼ 0.41−0.45) compared to both CS and H₂CO, which are nearly cospatial (z/r ∼ 0.21−0.28). In the outer midplane, the line emission decreases due to molecular freeze-out onto dust grains (freeze-out layer) by a factor of > 100 (CO) and 15 (CS). The H₂CO emission decreases by a factor of only about 2, which is possibly due to H₂CO formation on icy grains, followed by a nonthermal release into the gas phase. The inferred [CH₃OH]/[H₂CO] abundance ratio is 0.5−0.6, which is 1−2 orders of magnitude lower than for Class 0 hot corinos, and a factor ∼2.5 lower than the only other value inferred for a protoplanetary disk (in TW Hya, 1.3−1.7). Additionally, it is at the lower edge but still consistent with the values in comets. This may indicate that some chemical reprocessing occurs in disks before the formation of planets and comets.