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Title: The impact of external irradiation on protoplanetary disks in massive clusters
Speaker: Jenny Frediani
Affiliation: Stockholm University
Room: Å80101
Time: 14:00-15:00
Abstract:
Planets form in disk structures made of gas and dust surrounding newborn stars. Our current knowledge of how planetary systems form is mostly based on studies of nearby (< 500 pc) low-mass star-forming regions, where the protoplanetary disks evolve in isolation and can be studied in great detail. However, most stars and therefore planets form in high-mass star-forming regions, where massive OB stars shape their surroundings via strong far-ultraviolet (FUV) radiation and winds. These high-mass clusters also resemble the conditions of formation of our own Solar System. The photo-evaporation process induced by the external FUV field is known to quickly erode protoplanetary disks, potentially altering the formation of both rocky and gas giant planets. In this talk, I will present my research work as part of the eXtreme UV Environments (XUE) collaboration, in which we aim at investigating the impact of the external environment on the disk structure, warm disk chemistry and dust mineralogy, which are all crucial ingredients for planet formation models and planet atmosphere composition. To this aim, we combine multi-wavelength observations, including JWST/MIRI mid-infrared spectroscopy, with state-of-the-art thermo-chemical disk modelling of a sample of 12 externally irradiated planet-forming disks in the massive region NGC 6357, located at nearly 1.7 kpc. The emerging picture from the XUE sample suggests that planet formation can proceed even in the harsh environment of NGC 6357 in presence of water and familiar dust species. Yet, the strikingly CO2-dominated spectrum of XUE 10 pushes current planet-formation models to their limits. Its extreme chemistry questions how internal and external sources of irradiation sculpt altogether disk evolution, demanding a deeper understanding of the influence of low-to-high mass stellar hosts on the most common formation sites of planets.