Speaker
Description
Planet-forming disks observed by ALMA surveys often exhibit surprisingly faint continuum and CO emission, raising doubts about whether these disks contain enough material to account for the known exoplanet population. Despite this, the fainter end of the disk population - which shows compact, unresolved continuum emission and non-detections in CO isotopologues - has received little detailed investigation. It remains unclear whether this is due to faint but spatially extended emission or intrinsically compact disk structures. Distinguishing between these scenarios is crucial: if such disks are indeed compact, including their gaseous components, and optically thick, their inner regions could harbour significant reservoirs of material, potentially capable of forming gas giants within Jupiter's orbital radius. In my talk, I present new ALMA data that target 13CO(3-2) and 12CO(3-2)lines in 18CO-faint Lupus disks, probing the gaseous component of the faintest planet-forming disks. The results confirm that these disks are optically thick and potentially radially compact, therefore we could imply a substantial planet-forming capacity within 10 au in a significant fraction of Lupus disks. Furthermore, these disks challenge widely accepted theories of disk evolution, such as viscous evolution and MHD-driven processes, which cannot account for such small outer radii. The absence of environmental factors in Lupus suggests that compact disks may be a more common outcome of disk evolution than previously assumed. By investigating disks in environments where external effects are negligible, we can refine our understanding of intrinsic disk evolution processes and reassess their role in setting the initial conditions for planet formation.
| Category | Astrochemistry - the journey from clouds to planets |
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