Tracking the Chemical Evolution of Hydrocarbons Through Carbon Grain Supply in Protoplanetary Disks

TL;DR

This study models the chemical evolution of hydrocarbons in protoplanetary disks, revealing how different physical conditions and initial compositions influence carbon chemistry and hydrocarbon production.

Contribution

It introduces a set of 42 detailed models exploring the impact of C/O ratio, radiation environment, and initial water abundance on hydrocarbon chemistry in planet-forming disks.

Findings

Carbon species depend strongly on the radiation driver, with CO and hydrocarbons acting as sinks in X-ray environments.

The C/O ratio and ionization rate influence the peak and equilibrium abundances of hydrocarbons.

Hydrocarbon production, especially C$_2$H$_2$, is highly sensitive to initial water abundance.

Abstract

The gas present in planet-forming disks typically exhibits strong emission features of abundant carbon and oxygen molecular carriers. In some instances, protoplanetary disks show an elevated C/O ratio above interstellar values, which leads to a rich hydrocarbon chemistry evidenced in the mid-infrared spectra. The origin of this strengthened C/O ratio may stem from the release of less complex hydrocarbons from the chemical processing of carbonaceous grains. We have explored a set of 42 single-cell models in which we match the physical conditions to the inner regions of planet-forming disks, while varying the C/O ratio by exploring different levels of CH$_4$, C, H$_2$O, and CO to the gas-phase chemistry, which we evaluate in both the cosmic/X-ray and UV-driven limit. We find that the carbon-bearing species in our models exhibit high dependencies on the driver of the chemistry, where both CO and long chain hydrocarbons act as carbon sinks in the cosmic/X-ray-driven chemistry limit, while the vast majority ends up in atomic carbon and CO in the UV-driven limit. We also find moderate dependencies upon the C/O ratio, where this and the ionization rate/UV field determines the point of peak production of a species as well as its equilibrium abundance. We also find that the production of several hydrocarbons, specifically C$_2$H$_2$, is strongly dependent up to an order of magnitude on the initial water abundance. We lastly find that in the X-ray-driven limit, both CH$_4$ and C serve as highly transient donor species to the carbon chemistry.