Mineralization, Grain Growth and Disk Structure: Observations of the Evolution of Dust in Protoplanetary Disk

TL;DR

This paper reviews recent observational progress in understanding dust evolution in protoplanetary disks, focusing on mineralization, grain growth, and disk structure changes during planet formation, using infrared spectral data from telescopes.

Contribution

It summarizes advancements in analyzing dust composition and disk evolution in young stellar objects through mid-infrared spectroscopy.

Findings

Increased sample size of disks studied with Spitzer and ground-based telescopes.

Insights into dust mineralization and grain growth during planet formation.

Methods for determining dust composition from infrared spectra are reviewed.

Abstract

During the past five years, the Spitzer Space Telescope and improved ground-based facilities have enabled a huge increase in the number of circumstellar disks, around young stars of Solar mass or smaller, in which the composition of the solid component has been studied with complete mid-infrared spectra. With these samples we can assess observationally the evolution of dust through the planet-forming era, in parallel with the evolution of the composition and structure of protoplanetary disks. Here we will review the progress in this endeavour, with emphasis on objects in nearby associations and star-formation regions, and on the methods by which dust composition is determined from the infrared spectra of young stellar objects.