Project C
Reflection Nebulae as signposts of young star interactions with molecular clouds
Karina Mauco, Anna Miotello & Aashish Gupta
How can reflection nebulae guide us to identify late-infall onto protoplanetary disks? Searching for signposts of disk interaction with their natal molecular cloud.
Most stars are born in groups in giant molecular clouds through gravitational collapse. The natural byproduct of this process is a disk of gas and dust around the protostar. In general, stars do not evolve in isolation but they interact with their natal molecular cloud, potentially for their first tens of thousands of years. This interaction can produce late-infall of material onto the star+disk system. Late-infall can greatly influence the physical and chemical properties of disks, and thus, of the planets they form. For example, the supply of fresh material can help solve the ‘mass-budget problem’ of planet-forming disks, and explain the observed chemical diversity among meteorites. A characterization of the frequency and efficiency of late-infall is therefore crucial for establishing a holistic view of the star and planet formation process.
To comprehensively study late-infall, a survey of large-scale structures around young stars is needed and a first step towards this direction would be to systematically identify suitable targets. In order to find disks that are potentially undergoing late-infall, one should first identify sources which are close- enough to clouds to gravitationally interact with them. Such clouds will scatter the protostellar light in optical and near-infrared wavelengths and appear as reflection nebulae (RNe). In this project the student will pioneer the use of RNe detections close to protoplanetary disks to identify late-infall candidates.
The goal of this project is to search for RNe in the Corona Australis star-forming region (SFR). Analysis of archival RNe catalogs in SFRs has shown that these catalogs are quite incomplete, therefore, an adequate statistical analysis of RNe is still pending. In this project the student will use existing data from the OmegaCAM instrument at the ESO/VLT Survey Telescope VST to construct a RNe catalog in this SFR. In order to test the hypothesis that RNe might signpost late-infall. The student will look for signs of nebulosity around young stars, identify RNe and measure their approximated sizes. The next step would be to cross-match the list of young stellar objects with the catalog of RNe. This study has the potential to reveal how RNe may be used to identify disks undergoing late-infall. The project will set the base for the systematic search and identification of RNe in SFRs.