Massive compact dust disk with a gap around CW Tau revealed by ALMA multi-band observations

TL;DR

This study reveals a massive, compact protoplanetary disk around CW Tau with a gap at 20 au, suggesting potential planet formation, and discusses its marginal gravitational stability and dust properties based on multi-band ALMA observations.

Contribution

First detailed multi-band ALMA observations of CW Tau's compact disk, identifying a gap and analyzing its mass, stability, and dust characteristics, providing insights into early planet formation.

Findings

Disk radius $ extless$ 50 au with a gap at 20 au.

Disk may be marginally gravitationally unstable with Q $ extasciitilde$ 1-3.

Massive dust content of $ extasciitilde$250 Earth masses.

Abstract

Compact protoplanetary disks with a radius of $\lesssim$ 50 au are common around young low-mass stars. We report high resolution ALMA dust continuum observations toward a compact disk around CW Tau at Band 4 ($\lambda=2.2$ mm), 6 (1.3 mm), 7 (0.89 mm) and 8 (0.75 mm). The SED shows the spectral slope of $2.0\pm0.24$ between 0.75 and 1.3 mm, while it is $3.7\pm0.29$ between 2.17 and 3.56 mm. The steep slope between 2.17 and 3.56 mm is consistent with that of optically thin emission from small grains ($\lesssim$ 350 ${\rm \mu m}$). We perform parametric fitting of the ALMA data to characterize the dust disk. Interestingly, if the dust-to-gas mass ratio is 0.01, the Toomre's Q parameter reaches $\sim$ 1-3, suggesting that the CW Tau disk might be marginally gravitationally unstable. The total dust mass is estimated as $\sim250M_{\oplus}$ for the maximum dust size of 140 ${\rm \mu m}$ that is inferred from the previous Band 7 polarimetric observation and at least $80M_{\oplus}$ even for larger grain sizes. This result shows that the CW Tau disk is quite massive in spite of its smallness. Furthermore, we clearly identify a gap structure located at $\sim20$ au, which might be induced by a giant planet. In spite of these interesting characteristics, the CW Tau disk has normal disk luminosity, size and spectral index at ALMA Band 6, which could be a clue to the mass budget problem in Class II disks.