Protoplanetary Disk Polarization at Multiple Wavelengths: Are Dust Populations Diverse?

Abstract

Millimeter and submillimeter observations of continuum linear dust polarization provide insight into dust grain growth in protoplanetary disks, which are the progenitors of planetary systems. We present the results of the first survey of dust polarization in protoplanetary disks at 870 μ m and 3 mm. We find that protoplanetary disks in the same molecular cloud at similar evolutionary stages can exhibit different correlations between observing wavelength and polarization morphology and fraction. We explore possible origins for these differences in polarization, including differences in dust populations and protostar properties. For RY Tau and MWC 480, which are consistent with scattering at both wavelengths, we present models of the scattering polarization from several dust grain size distributions. These models aim to reproduce two features of the observational results for these disks: (1) both disks have an observable degree of polarization at both wavelengths; and (2) the polarization fraction is higher at 3 mm than at 870 μ m in the centers of the disks. For both disks, these features can be reproduced by a power-law distribution of spherical dust grains with a maximum radius of 200 μ m and high optical depth. In MWC 480, we can also reproduce features (1) and (2) with a model containing large grains ( a _max = 490 μ m) near the disk midplane and small grains ( a _max = 140 μ m) above and below the midplane.

Keywords

• Protoplanetary disks
• Polarimetry