ALMA reveals the anatomy of the mm-sized dust and molecular gas in the HD 97048 disk

TL;DR

This study uses ALMA to produce the first spatially resolved millimeter-wavelength images of the HD 97048 disk, revealing complex dust and gas structures, including rings and cavities, indicative of transitional disk features.

Contribution

First high-resolution millimeter images of HD 97048's disk, showing detailed dust and gas distribution, and evidence of radial drift and ring-like structures.

Findings

Dust grains are more centrally concentrated than gas and small grains.

The disk has a cavity of about 34 au and multiple ring-like structures.

Large dust grains show signs of radial drift.

Abstract

Transitional disks show a lack of excess emission at infrared wavelengths due to a large dust cavity, that is often corroborated by spatially resolved observations at ~ mm wavelengths. We present the first spatially resolved ~ mm-wavelength images of the disk around the Herbig Ae/Be star, HD 97048. Scattered light images show that the disk extends to ~640 au. The ALMA data reveal a circular-symmetric dusty disk extending to ~350 au, and a molecular disk traced in CO J=3-2 emission, extending to ~750 au. The CO emission arises from a flared layer with an opening angle ~ 30 deg - 40 deg. HD 97048 is another source for which the large (~ mm-sized) dust grains are more centrally concentrated than the small (~ {\mu}m-sized) grains and molecular gas, likely due to radial drift. The images and visibility data modelling suggests a decrement in continuum emission within ~50 au, consistent with the cavity size determined from mid-infrared imaging (34 +/- 4 au). The extracted continuum intensity profiles show ring-like structures with peaks at ~50, 150, and 300 au, with associated gaps at ~100 and 250 au. This structure should be confirmed in higher-resolution images (FWHM ~ 10 - 20 au). These data confirm the classification of HD 97048 as a transitional disk that also possesses multiple ring-like structures in the dust continuum emission. Additional data are required at multiple and well-separated frequencies to fully characterise the disk structure, and thereby constrain the mechanism(s) responsible for sculpting the HD 97048 disk.