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 virgul10AU. 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