The VLA/ALMA Nascent Disk and Multiplicity (VANDAM) Survey of Orion Protostars. II. A Statistical Characterization of Class 0 and Class i Protostellar Disks
Journal article, 2020
We have conducted a survey of 328 protostars in the Orion molecular clouds with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array at 0.87 mm at a resolution of ∼0.″1 (40 au), including observations with the Very Large Array at 9 mm toward 148 protostars at a resolution of ∼0.″08 (32 au). This is the largest multiwavelength survey of protostars at this resolution by an order of magnitude. We use the dust continuum emission at 0.87 and 9 mm to measure the dust disk radii and masses toward the Class 0, Class I, and flat-spectrum protostars, characterizing the evolution of these disk properties in the protostellar phase. The mean dust disk radii for the Class 0, Class I, and flat-spectrum protostars are 44.9-3.4+5.8, 37.0-3.0+4.9, and 28.5-2.3+3.7 au, respectively, and the mean protostellar dust disk masses are 25.9-4.0+7.7, 14.9-2.2+3.8, 11.6-1.9+3.5 M⊙, respectively. The decrease in dust disk masses is expected from disk evolution and accretion, but the decrease in disk radii may point to the initial conditions of star formation not leading to the systematic growth of disk radii or that radial drift is keeping the dust disk sizes small. At least 146 protostellar disks (35% of 379 detected 0.87 mm continuum sources plus 42 nondetections) have disk radii greater than 50 au in our sample. These properties are not found to vary significantly between different regions within Orion. The protostellar dust disk mass distributions are systematically larger than those of Class II disks by a factor of >4, providing evidence that the cores of giant planets may need to at least begin their formation during the protostellar phase.
Author
John J. Tobin
National Radio Astronomy Observatory
Patrick D. Sheehan
National Radio Astronomy Observatory
S. Thomas Megeath
University of Toledo
Ana Karla Diaz-Rodriguez
Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA)
S. Offner
The University of Texas at Austin
N. M. Murillo
Leiden University
Merel L.R. Van 'T Hoff
Leiden University
Ewine F. Van Dishoeck
Leiden University
Mayra Osorio
Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA)
G. Anglada
Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA)
Elise Furlan
California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
Amelia M. Stutz
University of Concepcion
Nickalas Reynolds
University of Oklahoma
Nicole Karnath
University of Toledo
William J. Fischer
Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI)
Magnus V. Persson
Chalmers, Space, Earth and Environment, Astronomy and Plasmaphysics
L. W. Looney
University of Illinois
Z. Y. Li
University of Virginia
Ian Stephens
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
C. J. Chandler
National Radio Astronomy Observatory Socorro
Erin Cox
Northwestern University
Michael M. Dunham
SUNY Fredonia
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Łukasz Tychoniec
Leiden University
M. Kama
University of Cambridge
K. M. Kratter
University of Arizona
Marina Kounkel
Western Washington University
Brian Mazur
University of Toledo
Luke T. Maud
European Southern Observatory (ESO)
Leiden University
Lisa Patel
University of Oklahoma
L. Perez
University of Chile (UCH)
S. I. Sadavoy
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
D. Segura-Cox
Max Planck Society
Rajeeb Sharma
University of Oklahoma
Brian Stephenson
University of Oklahoma
Dan M. Watson
University of Rochester
F. Wyrowski
Max Planck Society
Astrophysical Journal
0004-637X (ISSN) 1538-4357 (eISSN)
Vol. 890 2 130Subject Categories
Astronomy, Astrophysics and Cosmology
DOI
10.3847/1538-4357/ab6f64