Chemistry of protoplanetary disks have focused on the inner (R<5AU) or outer disk (R>100 AU) but not in the 5-30 AU region where giant planetsare formed. The hot organic chemistry of 5-30 AU region can be explored with Herschel. We tentatively detected CH+ emission in four disks at 72.14 micron. CH+ is a starting ion in the reaction network leading to methane, HCN, of C2H2. Two of the disks are known to havean inner gap up to ~10AU. We propose to obtain deep observations of three rotational transitions of CH+ with Herschel-PACS. The aims of the proposals are: 1) confirm the detections, 2) study the excitation condistions of CH+ in disks, 3) explore the hot carbon chemistry in disks with our chemical code,4) understand the role of inner gap in the disk chemistry.
Publication
Instrument
PACS_PacsRangeSpec_point
Temporal Coverage
2013-01-19T08:46:41Z/2013-01-19T10:07:33Z
Version
SPG v14.2.0
Mission Description
Herschel was launched on 14 May 2009! It is the fourth cornerstone mission in the ESA science programme. With a 3.5 m Cassegrain telescope it is the largest space telescope ever launched. It is performing photometry and spectroscopy in approximately the 55-671 µm range, bridging the gap between earlier infrared space missions and groundbased facilities.
European Space Agency, thi et al., 2013, 'The chemistry of CH+ in disks around HerbigAe stars', SPG v14.2.0, European Space Agency, https://doi.org/10.5270/esa-b3ljx1k
