PROTOPLANETARY DISKS · Formation and evolution of planetary systems

Formation and evolution of planetary systems

Circumstellar disks are modern day alchemists. They transform dust into astronomical gold: planets. Exactly how remains a mystery however and the immediate science goals of this project aim at answering a few of the critical questions astronomers are facing today: what is the structure of protoplanetray disks? Can we reproduce all observables of a disk with a single model encompassing the innermost and outermost regions, the deepest layers and the thin surface? Are the disk mass and density large enough to grow planets? How and where in the disk do grains grow to form planets? On what timescale? The goal of the Fellowship was to bring quantitative answers by performing multi-wavelengths and multi-techniques modelling of a larger number of disks, across the mass spectrum and at different evolutionary stages. During the fellowship at Exeter, Pinte has extended his knowledge of line transfer, and implemented and validated a non-LTE line transfer module into MCFOST that is intensively used for the research project presented here. Thanks to these developments, MCFOST now solves exactly the equations of radiative transfer both in dust and in gas. It is one of the few codes that can perfom such modelling and is truly world-leading. Additionally, Pinte led a benchmark to test continuum RT codes at very high optical depths (higher than 1e6 in the optical, Pinte et al., 2009). These tests indicate that MCFOST calculates the temperature structures, SEDs, images and polarization maps in excellent agreement to the results of six other codes. This work led to a paper which provides the community with a stringent benchmark against which others may test their codes. Pinte has initiated the application of these tools to multi-technique modelling of several protoplanetary disks. Such a detailed modelling has performed for 10 disks, as expected (IRAS 04158+2805, 2MASS J04442713+2512164, IM Lupi, HV Tau, CB 26, HK Tau, HD 169142, TW Hydra, Parlup-34, AB Aurigae see publication list). Each of these models reproduce a large number of observations sampling the complete wavelength range. They have lead to important conclusions on the disk properties and on their evolutionary status. Progress in the development of MCFOST was faster than expected, which offered Pi the opportunity to be strongly involved in the preparation for Herschel observations. In particular, he was invited to participate in the "Gas in Protoplanetary Systems" (GASPS) Key Project in the context of the Open Time of the Herschel Space Observatory (PI: B. Dent). The Marie Curie fellowship has lead to 16 published referred publications, 4 of them with C. Pinte as first author. This work produces long term legacy results, in particular for the preparation of the next generation of telescopes, in particular the ALMA and JWST. All the numerical tools have been developed to interpret the observations from these future telescopes.

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