exoALMA. IV. Substructures, asymmetries, and the faint outer disk in continuum emission

Pietro Curone*, Stefano Facchini, Sean M. Andrews, Leonardo Testi, Myriam Benisty, Ian Czekala, Jane Huang, John D. Ilee, Andrea Isella, Giuseppe Lodato, Ryan A. Loomis, Jochen Stadler, Andrew J. Winter, Jaehan Bae, Marcelo Barraza-Alfaro, Gianni Cataldi, Nicolás Cuello, Daniele Fasano, Mario Flock, Misato FukagawaMaria Galloway-Sprietsma, Himanshi Garg, Cassandra Hall, Andrés F. Izquierdo, Kazuhiro Kanagawa, Geoffroy Lesur, Cristiano Longarini, Francois Menard, Ryuta Orihara, Christophe Pinte, Daniel J. Price, Giovanni Rosotti, Richard Teague, Gaylor Wafflard-Fernandez, David J. Wilner, Lisa Wölfer, Hsi-Wei Yen, Tomohiro C. Yoshida, Brianna Zawadzki

*Corresponding author for this work

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Abstract

The exoALMA Large Program targeted a sample of 15 disks to study gas dynamics within these systems, and these observations simultaneously produced continuum data at 0.9 mm (331.6 GHz) with exceptional surface brightness sensitivity at high angular resolution. To provide a robust characterization of the observed substructures, we performed a visibility space analysis of the continuum emission from the exoALMA data, characterizing axisymmetric substructures and nonaxisymmetric residuals obtained by subtracting an axisymmetric model from the observed data. We defined a nonaxisymmetry index and found that the most asymmetric disks predominantly show an inner cavity and consistently present higher values of mass accretion rate and near-infrared excess. This suggests a connection between outer disk dust substructures and inner disk properties. The depth of the data allowed us to describe the azimuthally averaged continuum emission in the outer disk, revealing that larger disks (both in dust and gas) in our sample tend to be gradually tapered compared to the sharper outer edge of more compact sources. Additionally, the data quality revealed peculiar features in various sources, such as shadows, inner disk offsets, tentative external substructures, and a possible dust cavity wall.
Original languageEnglish
Article numberL9
Number of pages36
JournalAstrophysical Journal Letters
Volume984
Issue number1
Early online date28 Apr 2025
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 May 2025

Keywords

  • Protoplanetary disks
  • Dust continuum emission
  • Planet formation
  • Radio interferometry

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  • exoALMA. I. Science goals, project design, and data products

    Teague, R., Benisty, M., Facchini, S., Fukagawa, M., Pinte, C., Andrews, S. M., Bae, J., Barraza-Alfaro, M., Cataldi, G., Cuello, N., Curone, P., Czekala, I., Fasano, D., Flock, M., Galloway-Sprietsma, M., Garg, H., Hall, C., Hammond, I., Hilder, T. & Huang, J. & 21 others, Ilee, J. D., Izquierdo, A. F., Kanagawa, K., Lesur, G., Lodato, G., Longarini, C., Loomis, R. A., Masset, F., Menard, F., Orihara, R., Price, D. J., Rosotti, G., Stadler, J., Testi, L., Yen, H.-W., Wafflard-Fernandez, G., Wilner, D. J., Winter, A. J., Wölfer, L., Yoshida, T. C. & Zawadzki, B., 1 May 2025, In: Astrophysical Journal Letters. 984, 1, 15 p., L6.

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  • exoALMA. II. Data calibration and imaging pipeline

    Loomis, R. A., Facchini, S., Benisty, M., Curone, P., Ilee, J. D., Cataldi, G., Yen, H.-W., Teague, R., Pinte, C., Huang, J., Garg, H., Orihara, R., Czekala, I., Zawadzki, B., Andrews, S. M., Wilner, D. J., Bae, J., Barraza-Alfaro, M., Fasano, D. & Flock, M. & 13 others, Fukagawa, M., Galloway-Sprietsma, M., Izquierdo, A. F., Kanagawa, K., Lesur, G., Longarini, C., Menard, F., Price, D. J., Rosotti, G., Stadler, J., Wafflard-Fernandez, G., Wölfer, L. & Yoshida, T. C., 1 May 2025, In: Astrophysical Journal Letters. 984, 1, 20 p., L7.

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  • exoALMA. III. Line-intensity modeling and system property extraction from protoplanetary disks

    Izquierdo, A. F., Stadler, J., Galloway-Sprietsma, M., Benisty, M., Pinte, C., Bae, J., Teague, R., Facchini, S., Wölfer, L., Longarini, C., Curone, P., Andrews, S. M., Barraza-Alfaro, M., Cataldi, G., Cuello, N., Czekala, I., Fasano, D., Flock, M., Fukagawa, M. & Garg, H. & 20 others, Hall, C., Hammond, I., Hilder, T., Huang, J., Ilee, J. D., Isella, A., Kanagawa, K., Lesur, G., Lodato, G., Loomis, R. A., Orihara, R., Price, D. J., Rosotti, G., Testi, L., Yen, H.-W., Wafflard-Fernandez, G., Wilner, D. J., Winter, A. J., Yoshida, T. C. & Zawadzki, B., 1 May 2025, In: Astrophysical Journal Letters. 984, 1, 17 p., L8.

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