A Survey of Circumstellar Disks

An ALMA Continuum Survey of Circumstellar Disks in the Upper Scorpius OB Association

Authors:

Carpenter et al

Abstract:

We present ALMA 880 micron continuum observations of 20 K and M-type stars in the Upper Scorpius OB association that are surrounded by protoplanetary disks. These data are used to measure the dust content in disks around low mass stars (0.1-1.6 Msun) at a stellar age of 5-11 Myr. Thirteen sources were detected in the 880 micron dust continuum at greater than 3 sigma with inferred dust masses between 0.3 and 52 Mearth. The dust masses tend to be higher around the more massive stars, but the significance is marginal in that the probability of no correlation is p ~ 0.03. The evolution in the dust content in disks was assessed by comparing the Upper Sco observations with published continuum measurements of disks around ~ 1-2 Myr stars in the Class II stage in the Taurus molecular cloud. While the dust masses in the Upper Sco disks are on average lower than in Taurus, any difference in the dust mass distributions is significant at less than 3sigma. For stellar masses between 0.49 Msun and 1.6 Msun, the mean dust mass in disks is lower in Upper Sco relative to Taurus by Delta log Mdust = 0.44 +/-0.26.