Paper detail

Carbon depletion observed inside T Tauri inner rims: Formation of icy, kilometer size planetesimals by 1 Myr

The carbon content of protoplanetary disks is an important parameter to characterize planets formed at different disk radii. There is some evidence from far-infrared and submillimeter observations that gas in the outer disk is depleted in carbon, with a corresponding enhancement of carbon-rich ices at the disk midplane. Observations of the carbon content inside of the inner sublimation rim could confirm how much carbon remains locked in kilometer size bodies in the disk. Using near-infrared spectra, I self-consistently determine the stellar, extinction, veiling, and accretion properties of the 26 stars in my sample. From these values, I extract the inner disk excess of the target stars and identify a series of C^0 recombination lines in 18 of these disks and use the CHIANTI atomic line database with an optically thin slab model to constrain the average n_e, T_e, and n_C for these lines in the five disks with a complete set of lines. By comparing these values with other slab models of the inner disk using the Cloudy photoionization code, I also constrain n_H and the carbon abundance, X_C, and hence the amount of carbon `missing' from the slab. The inner disks are extremely dense (n_H~10^{16} cm^{-3}), warm (T_e~4500 K), and moderately ionized (logX_e~3.3). Three of the five modeled disks show robust carbon depletion <=42 relative to the solar value. I discuss multiple ways in which the `missing' carbon could be locked out of the accreting gas. Given the high-density inner disk gas, evidence for radial drift, and lack of obvious gaps in these three systems, their carbon depletion is most consistent with the `missing' carbon being sequestered in kilometer size bodies. For DR Tau, nitrogen and silicon are also depleted by factors of 45 and 4, respectively, suggesting that the kilometer size bodies into which the grains are locked were formed beyond the N_2 snowline.