The Nature of Transition Disks in Nearby Star-forming Regions

LUCAS A. CIEZA; M. R. SCHREIBER; GISELA A. ROMERO; MARIANA ORELLANA; JONATHAN P. WILLIAMS; BRUNO MERIN

Seattle, USA

Congreso; American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #217; 2011

American Astronomical Society

We present an update on our ongoing project to characterize a large sample of Spitzer selected transition disks located in several star-forming regions. Transition objects are pre-main-sequence stars with optically thin inner disks and optically thick outer disks. Different mechanisms have been proposed to explain their inner opacity holes: planet formation, grain growth, photoevaporation, and tidal truncation in tight binaries. These mechanisms, all relevant to disk evolution in general, can be distinguished when disk masses, accretion rates, and multiplicity information are available. We have already completed our study of Ophiuchus objects, presenting the results from Adaptive Optics (AO) imaging, submillimeter photometry, and echelle spectroscopy observations. We are currently working on several other regions, including Taurus-Auriga, Perseus, Serpens, and Lupus. Our results show that transition disks are a very heterogeneous group of objects with a wide range of SED morphologies, disk masses ( < 0.5 to 40 Mjup), and accretion rates (<10E−11 to 10E−7 Msolar/yr). Since the properties of our transition disks point toward distinct processes driving the evolution of each disk, we have been able to identify very strong candidates for the following disk categories: circumbinary disks, grain-growth dominated disks, photoevaporating disks, debris disks, and (giant) planet-forming disks.