Intermediate mass T Tauri disk masses and a comparison to their Herbig disk descendants

¹ Leiden Observatory, Leiden University, PO Box 9513, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands
² Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie, Königstuhl 17, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany
³ Anton Pannekoek Institute for Astronomy, University of Amsterdam, PO Box 94249, 1090 GE, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
⁴ Max-Planck-Institut für Extraterrestrische Physik, Giessenbachstrasse 1, 85748 Garching, Germany
⁵ European Southern Observatory, Karl-Schwarzschild-Strasse 2, 85748 Garching, Germany
⁶ Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA
⁷ School of Natural Sciences, Center for Astronomy, University of Galway, Galway H91 CF50, Ireland

^★ Corresponding author; lustapper@mpia.de

Received: 5 April 2024
Accepted: 12 November 2024

Abstract

Context. Herbig disks are prime sites for the formation of massive exoplanets and looking into the precursors of these disks can offer clues for determining planet formation timescales. The precursors of Herbig stars, called intermediate-mass T Tauri (IMTT) stars, have spectral types later than F, but stellar masses between 1.5 and 5 M_⊙. These stars will eventually become Herbig stars of spectral types A and B.

Aims. The aim of this work is to obtain the dust and gas masses and radii of all IMTT disks with ALMA archival data. The obtained disk masses are then compared to Herbig disks and T Tauri disks and the obtained disks sizes to those of Herbig disks.

Methods. ALMA Band 6 and 7 archival data were obtained for 34 IMTT disks with continuum observations, 32 of which have at least ¹²CO, ¹³CO, or C¹⁸O observations, but with most of them at quite shallow integrations. The disk integrated flux together with a stellar luminosity-scaled disk temperature were used to obtain a total disk dust mass by assuming optically thin emission. Using thermochemical Dust And LInes (DALI) models drawn from previous works, we also obtained gas masses of 10 out of 35 of the IMTT disks based on the CO isotopologues. From the disk masses and sizes, we obtained the cumulative distributions.

Results. The IMTT disks in this study have the same dust mass and radius distributions as Herbig disks. The dust mass of the IMTT disks is higher compared to that of the T Tauri disks, as also found for the Herbig disks. No differences in dust mass were found for group I versus group II disks, in contrast to Herbig disks. The disks for which a gas mass could be determined display a similarly high-mass as to the Herbig disks. Comparing the disk dust and gas mass distributions to the mass distribution of exoplanets shows that there also is not enough dust mass in disks around intermediate-mass stars to form massive exoplanets. On the other hand, there is more than enough gas to form the atmospheres of exoplanets.

Conclusions. We conclude that the sampled IMTT disk population is almost indistinguishable compared to Herbig disks, as their disk masses are the same, even though the former objects are younger. Based on this study, we conclude that planet formation is already well underway in these objects and, thus, planet formation is expected to start early on in the lifetime of Herbig disks. Combined with our findings on group I and group II disks, we conclude that most disks around intermediate-mass pre-main sequence stars converge quickly to small disks, unless they are prevented from doing so by a nearby massive exoplanet.