Speaker
Description
Water (H$_2$O) is key for habitability, but the delivery mechanism to (forming) planets is not yet well understood. The James Webb Space Telescope, especially through the MIRI instrument, can now study the planet-forming regions (inner few au) of disks around young stars. Hundreds of ro-vibrational (<10 $\mathrm{\mu}$m) and pure rotational (>10 $\mathrm{\mu}$m) transitions can probe the available H$_2$O reservoirs (cold, warm, and hot) in great detail.
It is proposed that the reservoirs can be altered by efficient radial drift or frequent accretion (out)bursts. While the latter requires detailed knowledge of the (often unknown) accretion timescales, the importance of radial drift is easier to examine, as observations with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array have revealed substructures (or pressure traps) in many disks that may impede the drift.
In this talk, I will present the analysis of the H$_2$O reservoirs in a sample of 24 T-Tauri disks that are part of the MIRI Mid-Infrared Disks Survey (MINDS), a JWST Cycle 1 GTO program. The sample comprises disks with various characteristics: from very small disks to large ones and disks with no apparent structures to those that are highly structured or have large cavities as seen with ALMA. This analysis provides, therefore, unique insights into the different H$_2$O reservoirs and the role of radial drift.
| Talk category | Plenary |
|---|---|
| Second preference | NOVA Network 2 |
| PhD relevance | 4th |
