Water in protoplanetary disks: Herschel observations and their implications for planet formation
by
Inga Kamp(Kapteyn Astronomical Institute, Netherlands)
→
Europe/Stockholm
FA32
FA32
Description
The disks around young stars, protoplanetary disks, are thought to be the birthplaces of planetary systems such as our own. Spitzer and ground-based observations showed in several cases the existence of water in such disks around young stars, hence inspiring the discussion of how much water vapour and ice is present to form gas giant planets, water worlds, but also to deliver the Earth oceans and eventually lead to the emergence of life.
One of the goals of the GASPS Open Time Key Program (PI: B.Dent) is the detection of water in young protoplanetary disk systems. We detected water using the PACS instrument in several protoplanetary disk systems, young T Tauri as well as Herbig stars and also in the more mature system TW Hya. This is currently the highest water detection rate on class II/III objects obtained with Herschel. Resolved line profiles from HIFI observations from the WISH key program and our own follow-up observations help us to distinguish between various possible origins of the water emission.
I will discuss the interpretation of the various observations in the context of simple slab models and more sophisticated codes such as the Monte Carlo RT code MCFOST and the thermo-chemical code ProDiMo.
