The Radial Distribution of Dust Particles in the HL Tau Disk from ALMA and VLA Observations

TL;DR

This study analyzes high-resolution ALMA and VLA images of the HL Tau disk to accurately determine dust properties, including maximum grain size, without assuming optical thinness, revealing dust growth and substructure origins.

Contribution

We developed a novel analysis method that accounts for optical depth, absorption, and scattering, enabling precise measurement of dust properties in protoplanetary disks.

Findings

Particles in HL Tau have grown to a few millimeters.

Dark rings contain smaller dust particles and lower density.

Different disk features have distinct origins, including planet interactions and snow lines.

Abstract

Understanding planet formation requires to discern how dust grows in protoplanetary disks. An important parameter to measure in disks is the maximum dust grain size present. This is usually estimated through measurements of the dust opacity at different millimeter wavelengths assuming optically thin emission and dust opacity dominated by absorption. However, ALMA observations have shown that these assumptions might not be correct in the case of protoplanetary disks, leading to overestimation of particle sizes and to underestimation of the disk's mass. Here, we present an analysis of high quality ALMA and VLA images of the HL Tau protoplanetary disk, covering a wide range of wavelengths, from 0.8 mm to 1 cm, and with a physical resolution of $\sim$7.35 au. We describe a procedure to analyze a set of millimeter images without any assumption about the optical depth of the emission, and including the effects of absorption and scattering in the dust opacity. This procedure allows us to obtain the dust temperature, the dust surface density and the maximum particle size at each radius. In the HL Tau disk, we found that particles have already grown up to a few millimeters in size. We detect differences in the dust properties between dark and bright rings, with dark rings containing low dust density and small dust particles. Different features in the HL Tau disk seem to have different origins. Planet-disk interactions can explain substructure at the external half of the disk, but the internal rings seem to be associated to the presence of snow lines of several molecules.