Riccardo Franceschi   (Italy)

franceschi @ mpia.de

Global Properties of Protoplanetary Disks

To understand how planets form it is crucial to find the link between the great variety in the properties of extrasolar planets and the diverse physical and chemical conditions in their parental disks. In particular, the disk total mass and turbulent viscosity seems to be the fundamental parameters in constraining the frequency and mass of planets. The aim of my work is therefore the determination of disk masses and the characterization of their turbulent state. To pursue this goal I follow several approaches, such as using molecular tracers such as CO isotopologues and HD. However, each one of these tracers presents several complications and a deeper knowledge of the disk chemistry and thermal structure is necessary. An alternative approach would be the use of the dust structure given by the analysis of NIR scattered light and multi-wavelength observation of the dust structure. If successful this novel technique, independent from other mass estimates, would provide us a powerful tool in constraining disk properties.

Supervisor:    Thomas Henning   (MPIA)