Modest Dust Settling in the IRAS04302+2247 Class I Protoplanetary Disk

Abstract

We present new Very Large Array observations, between 6.8 and 66 mm, of the edge-on Class I disk IRAS04302+2247. Observations at 6.8 mm and 9.2 mm lead to the detection of thermal emission from the disk, while shallow observations at the other wavelengths are used to correct for emission from other processes. The disk radial brightness profile transitions from broadly extended in previous Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array 0.9 mm and 2.1 mm observations to much more centrally brightened at 6.8 mm and 9.2 mm, which can be explained by optical depth effects. The radiative transfer modeling of the 0.9 mm, 2.1 mm, and 9.2 mm data suggests that the grains are smaller than 1 cm in the outer regions of the disk, allowing us to obtain the first lower limit for the scale height of grains emitting at millimeter wavelengths in a protoplanetary disk. We find that the millimeter dust scale height is between 1 au and 6 au at a radius 100 au from the central star, while the gas scale height is estimated to be about 7 au, indicating a modest level of settling. The estimated dust height is intermediate between less evolved Class 0 sources, which are found to be vertically thick, and more evolved Class II sources, which show a significant level of settling. This suggests that we are witnessing an intermediate stage of dust settling.

Keywords

• Protoplanetary disks
• Planet formation
• Radiative transfer
• Dust continuum emission