Evidence for a Snow Line Beyond the Transitional Radius in the TW Hya Protoplanetary Disk

TL;DR

This study locates the snow line in the TW Hya protoplanetary disk at about 4 AU, revealing a narrow water vapor-rich ring and a dry inner disk, providing evidence for snow line migration during disk evolution.

Contribution

First observational localization of the snow line in a transitional disk, showing it is beyond the expected radius and indicating snow line movement over time.

Findings

Water vapor peaks at ~4 AU, beyond the expected passive disk radius.

Inner disk (0.5-4 AU) is dry with low water abundance.

Water presence at the snow line could facilitate planetesimal formation.

Abstract

We present an observational reconstruction of the radial water vapor content near the surface of the TW Hya transitional protoplanetary disk, and report the first localization of the snow line during this phase of disk evolution. The observations are comprised of Spitzer-IRS, Herschel-PACS, and Herschel-HIFI archival spectra. The abundance structure is retrieved by fitting a two-dimensional disk model to the available star+disk photometry and all observed H2O lines, using a simple step-function parameterization of the water vapor content near the disk surface. We find that water vapor is abundant (~10^{-4} per H2) in a narrow ring, located at the disk transition radius some 4AU from the central star, but drops rapidly by several orders of magnitude beyond 4.2 AU over a scale length of no more than 0.5AU. The inner disk (0.5-4AU) is also dry, with an upper limit on the vertically averaged water abundance of 10^{-6} per H2. The water vapor peak occurs at a radius significantly more distant than that expected for a passive continuous disk around a 0.6 Msun star, representing a volatile distribution in the TW Hya disk that bears strong similarities to that of the solar system. This is observational evidence for a snow line that moves outward with time in passive disks, with a dry inner disk that results either from gas giant formation or gas dissipation and a significant ice reservoir at large radii. The amount of water present near the snow line is sufficient to potentially catalyze the (further) formation of planetesimals and planets at distances beyond a few AU.