The TW Hya Rosetta Stone Project III: Resolving the Gaseous Thermal Profile of the Disk

TL;DR

This study models the 2D thermal structure of the TW Hya protoplanetary disk using multi-line CO observations and radiative transfer modeling, highlighting the importance of HD measurements for accurate disk mass estimation.

Contribution

It provides a detailed thermal profile of TW Hya's disk and demonstrates the necessity of HD observations to accurately determine disk mass amidst CO depletion.

Findings

Thermal profile confirms CO is not a reliable mass tracer alone.

HD observations are crucial for accurate disk mass estimation.

The disk has a mass of approximately 0.025 solar masses.

Abstract

The thermal structure of protoplanetary disks is a fundamental characteristic of the system that has wide reaching effects on disk evolution and planet formation. In this study, we constrain the 2D thermal structure of the protoplanetary disk TW Hya structure utilizing images of seven CO lines. This includes new ALMA observations of 12CO J=2-1 and C18O J=2-1 as well as archival ALMA observations of 12CO J=3-2, 13CO J=3-2, 6-5, C18O J= 3-2, 6-5. Additionally, we reproduce a Herschel observation of the HD J=1-0 line flux, the spectral energy distribution, and utilize a recent quantification of CO radial depletion in TW Hya. These observations were modeled using the thermochemical code RAC2D, and our best fit model reproduces all spatially resolved CO surface brightness profiles. The resulting thermal profile finds a disk mass of 0.025 Msun and a thin upper layer of gas depleted of small dust with a thickness of approx 1.2% of the corresponding radius. Using our final thermal structure, we find that CO alone is not a viable mass tracer as its abundance is degenerate with the total H2 surface density. Different mass models can readily match the spatially resolved CO line profiles with disparate abundance assumptions. Mass determination requires additional knowledge and, in this work, HD provides the additional constraint to derive the gas mass and supports the inference of CO depletion in the TW Hya disk. Our final thermal structure confirms the use of HD as a powerful probe of protoplanetary disk mass. Additionally, the method laid out in this paper is an employable strategy for extraction of disk temperatures and masses in the future.