Work

Diverse dust vertical height and settling strength conditions in protoplanetary discs

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: ABSTRACT The settling of dust particles plays a critical role in the growth and dynamics of dust grains. Using radiative transfer simulations, we performed detailed modelling of the ALMA continuum substructures for six highly inclined protoplanetary discs to constrain the vertical height of millimetre dust grains and the settling strength. Our modelling results are a very thin millimetre dust disc in T Cha ($\textit{h}_{\text{dust}}\lt$ 0.1 au throughout the disc), a vertically extended dust disc in DoAr 25 ($\textit{h}_{\text{dust}}$ of $\sim$ 4.7 au at 140 au), and tentatively a thin disc in MY Lup ($\textit{h}_{\text{dust}}\lt$ 0.5 au at 70 au). From lower resolution observations, we found a very thin disc for PDS 111 ($\textit{h}_{\text{dust}}\lt$ 0.1 au throughout the disc) and a more vertically extended millimetre dust disc in V409 Tau ($\textit{h}_{\text{dust}}$ of $\sim$ 1.3 au at 35 au). We could not measure the vertical height in the asymmetric disc of RY Lup. We also found that the input dust opacities are a source of degeneracy in our models. Our tentative results, assuming the Ricci dust opacities, point to a diverse settling strength in our sample and possible radial variations. We also compared the models that best fit the ALMA data with the SPHERE data to test if they can reproduce the vertical distribution of small dust grains. This comparison suggests that models that reproduce the dust density distribution in the midplane cannot reproduce the distribution of small dust grains in the upper layers, reinforcing the need for more complex models.

Source: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stag882