Survey of Orion Disks with ALMA (SODA) I: Cloud-level demographics of 873 protoplanetary disks

TL;DR

This large ALMA survey of 873 protoplanetary disks in Orion A reveals that disk masses are generally similar across different regions and environments, with only weak variations, indicating common initial conditions and evolutionary rates.

Contribution

This is the largest unresolved millimeter continuum survey of Orion disks, providing new insights into their demographics and environmental dependencies.

Findings

Median disk dust mass is approximately 2.2 M⊕.

Disk mass distribution is similar to nearby low-mass star-forming regions.

Weak trends in disk mass with galactic longitude and cluster membership.

Abstract

(Abridged) Surveys of protoplanetary disks in nearby star-forming regions (SFRs) have provided important information on their demographics, but due to their sample sizes, they cannot be used to study how disk properties vary with the environment. We conduct a survey of the unresolved millimeter continuum emission of 873 protoplanetary disks identified by Spitzer in the L1641 and L1647 regions of the Orion A cloud. This is the largest such survey yet, allowing us to identify even weak trends in the median disk mass as a function of position in the cloud and cluster membership. The sample detection rates and median masses are also compared to those of nearby (<300 pc) SFRs. The sample was observed with ALMA at 225 GHz, with a median rms of 0.08 mJy/beam (1.5 M$_{\oplus}$). The data were reduced and imaged using an innovative parallel data processing approach. We detect 58% (502/873) of the observed disks. This includes 20 disks with dust masses >100 M$_{\oplus}$, and two objects associated with extended dust emission. We infer a median disk dust mass in the full sample of $2.2^{+0.2}_{-0.2}$ M$_{\oplus}$. In L1641 and L1647 median dust masses are $2.1^{+0.2}_{-0.2}$ M$_{\oplus}$ and $2.6^{+0.4}_{-0.5}$ M$_{\oplus}$, respectively. The disk mass distribution of the full sample is similar to that of nearby low-mass SFRs at similar ages of 1-3 Myr. We find only weak trends in disk (dust) masses with galactic longitude and between the YSO clusters identified in the sample, with median masses varying by $\lesssim$ 50%. Age differences may explain these median disk mass variations. Apart from this, disk masses are essentially constant at scales of ~100 pc. This also suggests that the majority of disks, even in different SFRs, are formed with similar initial masses and evolve at similar rates, assuming no external irradiation, with disk mass loss rates of $\sim 10^{-8}$ M$_{\odot}$/yr.