Protoplanetary disks are the essential link between molecular clouds and planetary systems. Protoplanetary disk evolution determines the resulting planetary systems. In this dissertation, I focus on tracing evolution in populations of disks by analyzing large samples of disks. This dissertation is made possible by new observations and physically-motivated models. The main processes that I use to study disk evolution are the dust growth and evolution that occur in the outer disk and the accretion of gas from the inner disk onto the star.
Lynds 1641 (L1641) is a star-forming region in the Orion Molecular Cloud A, and it has great potential as a laboratory for protoplanetary disk evolution. I present observations of disks in L1641 from the Herschel Space Observatory and the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA). The far-infrared Herschel data are sensitive to micron-sized dust grains in the outer disk atmosphere, and the radio ALMA data trace the millimeter-sized dust grains in the disk midplane. I use accretion disk models to show that the far-infrared data are consistent with disks that show signs of dust evolution, even in this young (~1.5 Myr) region. I compare the L1641 millimeter data to other surveys and show that L1641 is at a stage of evolution between young protostellar systems and more evolved disks where planet formation is already well-underway.
Accretion of material onto a star is an important mechanism in protoplanetary disk dispersal and heating. The classical magnetospheric accretion paradigm is well-understood and established for low-mass stars. However, higher-mass stars may not have the magnetic field strength for magnetospheric accretion to occur. I present a large survey of intermediate-mass systems with near-infrared spectra. I use the accretion-tracing Brγ line to find trends with system properties and find a break in the accretion rate—stellar mass relationship, which may indicate a break in the accretion mechanism. Additionally, I use magnetospheric accretion models to reproduce the observations to determine the accretion properties in a subset of objects, finding that these models can reproduce fast-moving emission.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bu.edu/oai:open.bu.edu:2144/43934 |
| Date | 24 February 2022 |
| Creators | Grant, Sierra Lynn |
| Contributors | Espaillat, Catherine C. |
| Source Sets | Boston University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
| Rights | Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ |
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