Protostars and Planets VI, Heidelberg, July 15-20, 2013

Poster 2S036

A VLT/X-Shooter study of accretion and photoevaporation in Transitional Disks

Manara, Carlo Felice (ESO)
Testi, Leonardo (ESO, INAF-Arcetri, Excellence Cluster)
Natta, Antonella (INAF-Arcetri, DIAS)
Ricci, Luca (Caltech)
Benisty, Myriam (Grenoble)
Rosotti, Giovanni (USM Munich, Excellence Cluster)
Ercolano, Barbara (USM Munich, Excellence Cluster)

Abstract:
Transitional Disks (TDs) are considered to be a late evolutionary stage of optically thick massive disks whose inner regions are being evacuated, leaving behind large holes that can be detected both by modeling the infrared spectral energy distribution (SED) or, in some cases, by mm-interferometry. These holes could be produced by processes of photoevaporation, grain growth, or planet formation. Still, none of these processes alone has been shown to be sufficient to explain all observations. In this context, the combination of inner hole size, mass accretion rate and wind properties is a powerful observational diagnostic of disk evolution models, but the current measurements of mass accretion rates for TDs are mostly based on secondary indicators (such as the 10% Ha width), and very few data on the wind properties for these objects are available. Here we present a detailed study of the accretion and wind properties of TDs carried out with the VLT/X-Shooter spectrograph. Combining new and archival X-Shooter observations, we collected a sample of more than 20 TDs from different nearby star-forming regions. Our sample includes objects with both small (<5-15 AU) and large (>20-30 AU) known inner hole size from the literature (either from mm-observations or infrared SED fitting). We check their stellar parameters (Teff, Lstar, Av, Mstar) and derive their accretion properties (Lacc, Macc) in a self-consistent way, which makes use of the wide wavelength coverage of X-Shooter, and study their wind properties by mean of different forbidden emission lines analysis. Here we present some preliminary results.

Click here to view poster PDF