Depletion of gaseous CO in protoplanetary disks by surface-energy-regulated ice formation

TL;DR

This paper presents a model showing that surface energy effects on particles in protoplanetary disks can trap CO in ice, explaining observed CO depletion and improving understanding of disk properties relevant to planet formation.

Contribution

It introduces a novel surface energy-regulated ice formation mechanism that explains CO depletion in disks, aligning models with observations and constraining key disk parameters.

Findings

Reproduces observed CO abundance and distribution in disks

Constrains solid and gaseous CO inventories and disk diffusivities

Resolves discrepancies in disk mass estimates

Abstract

Empirical constraints of fundamental properties of protoplanetary disks are essential for understanding planet formation and planetary properties (1,2). Carbon monoxide (CO) gas is often used to constrain disk properties (3). However, estimates show that the CO gas abundance in disks is depleted relative to expected values (4,5,6,7), and models of various disk processes impacting the CO abundance could not explain this depletion on observed 1Myr timescales (8,9,10,11,12,13,14). Here we demonstrate that surface energy effects on particles in disks, such as the Kelvin effect, that arise when ice heterogeneously nucleates onto an existing particle can efficiently trap CO in its ice phase. In previous ice formation models, CO gas was released when small ice-coated particles were lofted to warmed disk layers. Our model can reproduce the observed abundance, distribution and time evolution of gaseous CO in the four most studied protoplanetary disks (7). We constrain the solid and gaseous CO inventory at the midplane and disk diffusivities and resolve inconsistencies in estimates of the disk mass -- three crucial parameters that control planetary formation.