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Nonthermal line broadening confirmed in the DM Tau disk

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Research area:physics-astronomyastrophysics-stellar

What the study found

The study found a significant nonthermal contribution to the molecular line width in the DM Tau protoplanetary disk, around 0.4 times the sound speed. The authors report that this is inconsistent with purely thermal motion.

Why the authors say this matters

The authors conclude that this kind of analysis can directly extract disk structure and nonthermal broadening from molecular line data. They suggest the framework can be applied to other disks with high-quality observations.

What the researchers tested

The researchers used the radiative transfer code MCFOST in a Bayesian inference framework. They fit high-resolution 12CO J=3-2 observations from the exoALMA Large Program and evaluated over five million disk models to sample the parameter space. They then used the CO-based disk structure as a starting point to model CS J=7-6 emission.

What worked and what didn't

The CO data fit revealed a significant nonthermal contribution to the line width of about 0.4 times the sound speed. Using the CO-based disk structure, the authors reproduced the CS J=7-6 emission well, and the CS result agreed with the turbulence inferred from the CO fit. The abstract also says they identified residual structures in the moment maps that deviate from the expected emission and may trace forming planets.

What to keep in mind

The abstract does not describe specific limitations or uncertainties beyond what is implied by the modeling approach. The findings are reported for DM Tau and for the particular molecular lines and observations used in this study.

Key points

  • DM Tau shows a significant nonthermal contribution to its molecular line width.
  • The reported nonthermal broadening is about 0.4 times the sound speed.
  • The analysis used high-resolution 12CO J=3-2 observations and a Bayesian modeling framework.
  • CS J=7-6 emission was reproduced well using the CO-based disk structure.
  • Residual structures in the moment maps may trace forming planets.

Disclosure

Research title:
Nonthermal line broadening confirmed in the DM Tau disk
Authors:
Caitlyn Hardiman, C. Pinte, Daniel J. Price, Thomas Hilder, Iain Hammond, Taïssa Danilovich, Sean M. Andrews, Richard Teague, Giovanni P. Rosotti, Mario Flock, Gianni Cataldi, Jaehan Bae, Marcelo Barraza-Alfaro, Myriam Benisty, Nicolás Cuello, Pietro Curone, Ian Czekala, Stefano Facchini, Daniele Fasano, Misato Fukagawa, Maria Galloway-Sprietsma, Himanshi Garg, Cassandra Hall, Jane Huang, John D. Ilee, Andrés F. Izquierdo, Kazuhiro Kanagawa, Geoffroy Lesur, Giuseppe Lodato, Cristiano Longarini, Ryan A. Loomis, Francois Menard, Ryuta Orihara, Jochen Stadler, Hsi-Wei Yen, Gaylor Wafflard- Fernandez, David J. Wilner, Andrew J. Winter, Lisa Wölfer, Tomohiro C. Yoshida, Brianna Zawadzki
Publication date:
2026-01-30
DOI:
10.3847/2041-8213/ae313a
OpenAlex record:
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AI provenance: This post was generated by gpt-5.4-mini (OpenAI). The original authors did not write or review this post.

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