Gap Opening and Inner Disk Structure in the Strongly Accreting Transition Disk of DM Tau

• Published in: arXiv.org 2022-08
• Main Authors: Logan, Francis, Nienke van der Marel, Johnstone, Doug, Akiyama, Eiji, Bruderer, Simon, Dong, Ruobing, Hashimoto, Jun, Liu, Hauyu Baobab, Muto, Takayuki, Yang, Yi
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Accretion disks; Carbon monoxide; Depletion; Dust; Spectral energy distribution; T Tauri stars; Turbulence
• ISSN: 2331-8422
• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2208.01598

Large inner dust gaps in transition disks are frequently posited as evidence of giant planets sculpting gas and dust in the disk, or the opening of a gap by photoevaporative winds. Although the former hypothesis is strongly supported by the observations of planets and deep depletions in gas within the gap some disks, many T Tauri stars hosting transition disks accrete at rates typical for an undepleted disk, raising the question of how gap opening occurs in these objects. We thus present an analysis of the structure of the transition disk around the T Tauri star DM Tau, which is strongly accreting (\(\sim 10^{-8.3}~\mathrm{M}_\odot~ \mathrm{yr}^{-1}\)) and turbulent (\(\alpha=0.078 \pm 0.02\)). Using the DALI thermochemical code, we fit disk models to simultaneously reproduce the accretion rate, high level of turbulence, the gas traced by ALMA band 6 observations of \(^{12}\)CO, \(^{13}\)CO, and C\(^{18}\)O J=2--1 lines, and the observed dust emission from the mm continuum and spectral energy distribution. We find a shallow depletion in gas surface density of \(\sim 10\) relative to the outer disk and a gas rich inner disk is consistent with the observations. The planet mass of \(