The ice composition in the disk around V883 Ori revealed by its stellar outburst

TL;DR

This study leverages a stellar outburst in V883 Ori to spatially resolve and analyze complex organic molecules in its disk, revealing ice compositions relevant to planet formation.

Contribution

It demonstrates how stellar outbursts can be used to detect and study COMs in protoplanetary disks, providing insights into ice composition during planet formation.

Findings

Detected five COMs in V883 Ori's disk during outburst

COM abundances are comparable to cometary values

Outbursts enable direct study of ice composition in planet-forming regions

Abstract

Complex organic molecules (COMs), which are the seeds of prebiotic material and precursors of amino acids and sugars, form in the icy mantles of circumstellar dust grains but cannot be detected remotely unless they are heated and released to the gas phase. Around solar-mass stars, water and COMs only sublimate in the inner few au of the disk, making them extremely difficult to spatially resolve and study. Sudden increases in the luminosity of the central star will quickly expand the sublimation front (so-called snow line) to larger radii, as seen previously in the FU Ori outburst of the young star V883 Ori. In this paper, we take advantage of the rapid increase in disk temperature of V883 Ori to detect and analyze five different COMs, methanol, acetone, acetonitrile, acetaldehyde, and methyl formate, in spatially-resolved submillimeter observations. The COMs abundances in V883 Ori is in reasonable agreement with cometary values. This result suggests that outbursting young stars can provide a special opportunity to study the ice composition of material directly related to planet formation.