Constraining the gas mass of Herbig disks using CO isotopologues

TL;DR

This study uses CO isotopologue observations and thermo-chemical modeling to accurately determine the gas mass of Herbig disks, revealing higher gas-to-dust ratios than in T Tauri disks and emphasizing the impact of temperature on CO-based mass estimates.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive method combining ALMA and NOEMA data with DALI modeling to improve gas mass estimates in Herbig disks, accounting for chemical effects on CO.

Findings

Herbig disks have gas-to-dust ratios of at least 100.

Simple optically thin estimates underestimate gas mass by over an order of magnitude.

Herbig disks exhibit significantly higher gas masses compared to T Tauri and debris disks.

Abstract

The total disk mass sets the formation potential for exoplanets. Carbon-monoxide (CO) has been used as a gas mass tracer in T Tauri disks, but was found to be less abundant than expected due to freeze-out and chemical conversion of CO on the surfaces of cold dust grains. The disks around more massive intermediate mass pre-main sequence stars called Herbig disks are likely to be warmer, allowing for the possibility of using CO as a more effective total gas mass tracer. Using ALMA archival data and new NOEMA data of 12CO, 13CO, and C18O transitions of 35 Herbig disks within 450 pc, the masses are determined using the thermo-chemical code Dust And LInes (DALI). The majority of Herbig disks for which 13CO and C18O are detected are optically thick in both. Computing the gas mass using a simple optically thin relation between line flux and column density results in an underestimate of the gas mass of at least an order of magnitude compared to the masses obtained with DALI. The inferred gas masses with DALI are consistent with a gas-to-dust ratio of at least 100. These gas-to-dust ratios are two orders of magnitude higher compared to those found for T Tauri disks using similar techniques, even over multiple orders of magnitude in dust mass, illustrating the importance of chemical conversion of CO in colder T Tauri disks. Similar high gas-to-dust ratios are found for Herbig group I and II disks. Since group II disks have dust masses comparable to T Tauri disks, their higher CO gas masses illustrate the determining role of temperature. Compared to debris disks, Herbig disks have four orders of magnitude higher gas masses. At least one Herbig disk, HD 163296, has a detected molecular disk wind, but our investigation has not turned up other detections of the CO disk wind in spite of similar sensitivities.