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A novel way of measuring the gas disk mass of protoplanetary disks using N₂H⁺ and C18O

Presentation #319.03 in the session Exoplanet Formation of Planets and Protoplanetary Disks I.

Published onJun 29, 2022
A novel way of measuring the gas disk mass of protoplanetary disks using N₂H⁺ and C18O

Measuring the gas mass of protoplanetary disks, the reservoir available for giant planet formation, has proven to be difficult. We currently lack a far-infrared observatory capable of observing HD, and the most common gas mass tracer, CO, suffers from a poorly constrained CO-to-H2 ratio. I will present recently published work where we investigated if N2H+, a chemical tracer of CO poor gas, can be used to observationally measure the CO-to-H2 ratio in disks and correct their CO-based gas masses. To test this, we set up thermochemical models for the three disks (TW Hya, DM Tau and GM Aur) where HD 1-0 has been previously detected and used to independently measure the disk gas mass. We show that the CO-to-H2 ratio and gas mass can be measured from N2H+ and C18O line fluxes and that these gas masses agree with values obtained from HD within their respective uncertainties. . These results demonstrate the potential of using the combination of N2H+ and C18O to measure gas masses of protoplanetary disks.

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