Australia Telescope National Facility

Galaxy Lunch - Dave Lommen speaking on "Probing the first steps of planet formation at long wavelengths"

ATNF Basement Meeting Room

Speaker: Dave Lommen (Leiden Observatory)

Title: Probing the first steps of planet formation at long wavelengths

Abstract: Planets form in dusty disks around young stars. The dust grains in the disks have to grow from submicron to kilometre sizes within a few million years, and the largerst grains that can be observed directly are of about centimetre sizes. We used the Australian Telescope Compact Array to observe a dozen southern T Tauri stars at 3 mm. By combining our data with data from the literature and new 1-mm observations, we found that at least 50% of the sources have
millimetre-sized grains. We also for the first time found a tentative
correlation with the 10-micron silicate dust feature, which probes the
inner disk. Two of the sources from our sample were followed up and
monitored at longer wavelengths, and one of those was found to have
"grains" of centimetre or even metre sizes.

Bring your lunch!