Increasing Carbon Monoxide Detections In Protoplanetary Disks

One of the most important gas mass tracers used for analyzing the properties of protoplanetary disks is carbon monoxide (CO). Previous ALMA radio telescope surveys of disks in star-forming regions had short integration time which led to molecular line non-detections, particularly in disks around less luminous protostars and with lower dust masses. By revisiting these archival disks surveys, we hoped to increase the number of CO detections by exploiting the Keplerian velocity structure of protoplanetary disks. Using CASA software and the Python package GoFish, we stacked the spectra of the isotopologues 13CO and C18O to increase the signal to noise of our data. Using this improved data, we’ve reanalyzed previous trends to deepen our understanding of the characteristics of protoplanetary disks.