Protoplanetary Disks of T Tauri Binary Systems in the Orion Nebula Cluster

TL;DR

This study investigates protoplanetary disks in binary stars within the Orion Nebula Cluster, revealing how binarity influences disk presence, evolution, and accretion, with implications for planet formation in multiple star systems.

Contribution

It provides the largest spatially resolved analysis of disks in binary systems in a dense star-forming environment, highlighting differences based on binary separation and accretion activity.

Findings

40% of binary components have accretion disks, slightly fewer than single stars.

Disks in wide binaries (>200AU) are randomly paired, while close binaries show synchronized disk evolution.

Mixed accreting and non-accreting pairs are common, with no clear mass preference.

Abstract

We present a study of protoplanetary disks in spatially resolved low-mass binary stars in the Orion Nebula Cluster (ONC) to assess the impact of binarity on the properties of circumstellar disks. This is currently the largest such study in a clustered high-stellar-density star-forming environment. We particularly aim to determine the presence of magnetospheric accretion and dust disks for each binary component, and measure the overall disk frequency. We carried out spatially resolved adaptive-optics-assisted observations to acquire near-IR photometry and spectroscopy of 26 binaries in the ONC, and determine stellar parameters such as effective temperatures, spectral types, luminosities, and masses, as well as accretion properties and near-infrared excesses for the individual binary components. A fraction of 40(+10/-9)% of the binary components in the sample can be inferred to be T Tauri stars possessing an accretion disk, marginally fewer than the disk fraction of single stars. We find that disks in wide binaries of >200AU separation are consistent with random pairing, while the evolution of circumprimary and circumsecondary disks is observed to be synchronized in close binaries (separations <200AU). Circumbinary disks appear to be unsuitable to explain this difference. Furthermore, we identify several mixed pairs of accreting and non-accreting components, suggesting that these systems are common and that there is no preference for either the more or less massive component to evolve faster. The derived accretion luminosities and mass accretion rates of the ONC binary components are of similar magnitude as those for both ONC single stars and binaries in the Taurus star-forming region. The paper concludes with a discussion of the (presumably weak) connection between the presence of inner accretion disks in young binary systems and the existence of planets in stellar multiples.(abridged)