Substantial reservoirs of molecular hydrogen in the debris disks around young stars

W. F. Thi, G. A. Blake (), E. F. van Dishoeck, G. J. van Zadelhoff, J. M. M. Horn, E. E. Becklin, V. Mannings, A. I. Sargent, M. E. van den Ancker and A. Natta
Additional contact information
W. F. Thi: Leiden Observatory, PO Box 9513
G. A. Blake: Caltech 150-21
E. F. van Dishoeck: Leiden Observatory, PO Box 9513
G. J. van Zadelhoff: Leiden Observatory, PO Box 9513
J. M. M. Horn: Department of Physics and Astronomy UCLA
E. E. Becklin: Department of Physics and Astronomy UCLA
V. Mannings: SIRTF Science Center, MS 314-6, Caltech
A. I. Sargent: Mathematics and Astronomy, Caltech 105-24
M. E. van den Ancker: Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
A. Natta: Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri, Largo E. Fermi 5

Nature, 2001, vol. 409, issue 6816, 60-63

Abstract: Abstract Circumstellar accretion disks transfer matter from molecular clouds to young stars and to the sites of planet formation. The disks observed around pre-main-sequence stars have properties consistent with those expected for the pre-solar nebula from which our own Solar System formed 4.5 Gyr ago1. But the ‘debris’ disks that encircle more than 15% of nearby main-sequence stars2,3,4,5 appear to have very small amounts of gas, based on observations of the tracer molecule carbon monoxide6,7,8: these observations have yielded gas/dust ratios much less than 0.1, whereas the interstellar value is about 100 (ref. 9). Here we report observations of the lowest rotational transitions of molecular hydrogen (H2) that reveal large quantities of gas in the debris disks around the stars β Pictoris, 49 Ceti and HD135344. The gas masses calculated from the data are several hundreds to a thousand times greater than those estimated from the CO observations, and yield gas/dust ratios of the same order as the interstellar value.

Date: 2001
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DOI: 10.1038/35051033

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