Inferring the physics of protoplanetary disc evolution from the irradiated Cygnus OB2 region -- A comparison of viscous and MHD wind-driven scenarios

TL;DR

This study compares viscous and MHD wind-driven models for protoplanetary disc evolution, using synthetic populations and environmental factors like FUV radiation to identify observable differences and determine the dominant mechanism.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method of distinguishing disc evolution scenarios by analyzing stellar accretion and wind mass-loss rates in different radiation environments.

Findings

Both models can reproduce observational constraints.

Disc radii are larger in low FUV environments, especially in viscous models.

Studying accretion and wind rates helps differentiate evolution mechanisms.

Abstract

Our current understanding has crystallised around two possible evolution scenarios for protoplanetary discs (turbulent viscosity and magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) wind-driven) - but which dominates remains uncertain. Our aims are twofold: Firstly, we investigate whether a single set of model parameters can reproduce the observational constraints of non-irradiated and irradiated discs. Secondly, we propose a novel approach to break degeneracies between the two evolution scenarios by studying the relation of stellar accretion rate and externally driven wind mass-loss rates, which evolve differently depending on the mechanism of angular momentum transport in the outer disc. We evolve synthetic populations of protoplanetary discs using 1D vertically integrated models for both viscous and MHD wind-driven disc evolution including both internal X-ray and external far ultraviolet (FUV) photoevaporation for both evolution scenarios. We investigate both weak and strong FUV field environments, where the strong FUV field is calculated based on an environment similar to the Cygnus OB2 association. While both scenarios are able to reproduce observational constraints, our simulations suggest that different parameters are needed for the angular momentum transport to explain disc lifetimes and disc mass - stellar accretion rate relation in weakly and strongly irradiated regions. We find that the predicted median disc radii are much larger in low FUV environments compared to Cygnus OB2, but also decreasing with time. In the viscous scenario, the median disc radius in a low FUV field environment is ~100au larger than for the MHD wind-driven scenario. We further show that studying stellar accretion rates and externally driven wind mass-loss rates (provided that they can be isolated from internally driven winds; i.e. MHD wind) is indeed a promising way of disentangling the two evolution scenarios.