Disc Clearing of Young Stellar Objects: Evidence for Fast Inside-out Dispersal

Abstract

The time-scale over which and the modality by which young stellar objects (YSOs) disperse their circumstellar discs dramatically influences the eventual formation and evolution of planetary systems. By means of extensive radiative transfer (RT) modelling, we have developed a new set of diagnostic diagrams in the infrared colour-colour plane (K-[24] vs. K-[8]), to aid with the classification of the evolutionary stage of YSOs from photometric observations. Our diagrams allow the differentiation of sources with unevolved (primordial) discs from those evolving according to different clearing scenarios (e.g. homologous depletion vs. inside-out dispersal), as well as from sources that have already lost their disc. Classification of over 1500 sources in 15 nearby star-forming regions reveals that approximately 39 % of the sources lie in the primordial disc region, whereas between 31 % and 32 % disperse from the inside-out and up to 22 % of the sources have already lost their disc. Less than 2 % of the objects in our sample lie in the homogeneous draining regime. Time-scales for the transition phase are estimated to be typically a few 10^5 years independent of stellar mass. Therefore, regardless of spectral type, we conclude that currently available infrared photometric surveys point to fast (of order 10 % of the global disc lifetime) inside-out clearing as the preferred mode of disc dispersal.

31 pages, 21 figures, 6 tables, accepted for publication in MNRAS

References in corpus (13)

• A Spitzer Survey of Young Stellar Clusters within One Kiloparsec of the Sun: Cluster Core Extraction and Basic Structural Analysis
• Photoevaporation of protoplanetary discs II: evolutionary models and observable properties
• Photoevaporation of protoplanetary discs I: hydrodynamic models
• The Stellar Population of the Chamaeleon I Star-Forming Region
• The Disk Around CoKu Tau/4: Circumbinary, not Transitional
• Spitzer observations of the Orion OB1 association: disk census in the low mass stars
• The Spitzer c2d Survey of Large, Nearby, Interstellar Clouds. XI. Lupus Observed With IRAC and MIPS
• Fitting the young main-sequence; distances, ages and age spreads
• Binarity as a key factor in protoplanetary disk evolution: Spitzer disk census of the eta Chamaeleontis cluster
• The young population of the Chamaeleon II dark cloud
• Two populations of transition discs?
• Evidence for Early Circumstellar Disk Evolution in NGC 2068/71
• A Spectroscopic Study of Young Stellar Objects in the Serpens Cloud Core and NGC 1333

Cited by in corpus (49)

• Protoplanetary disk lifetimes vs stellar mass and possible implications for giant planet populations
• Atmospheres of low-mass planets: the "boil-off"
• Accretion of Jupiter-mass Planets in the Limit of Vanishing Viscosity
• Correlations between compositions and orbits established by the giant impact era of planet formation
• Protoplanetary disc evolution affected by star-disc interactions in young stellar clusters
• The origin and evolution of transition discs: successes, problems and open questions
• Early Solar System instability triggered by dispersal of the gaseous disk
• The dispersal of protoplanetary discs. II: Photoevaporation models with observationally derived irradiating spectra
• Gas and multi-species dust dynamics in viscous protoplanetary discs: the importance of the dust back-reaction
• Two timescale dispersal of magnetized protoplanetary disks
• Disk Dispersal: Theoretical Understanding and Observational Constraints
• Fingerprints of giant planets in the composition of solar twins
• To cool is to keep: Residual H/He atmospheres of super-Earths and sub-Neptunes
• Order out of Randomness : Self-Organization Processes in Astrophysics
• Constraining the entropy of formation from young transiting planets
• Characterising thermal sweeping: a rapid disc dispersal mechanism
• Radiation pressure clear-out of dusty photoevaporating discs
• Accreting planets as dust dams in `transition' discs
• Stability and Occurrence Rate Constraints on the Planetary Sculpting Hypothesis for "Transitional" Disks
• Population study on MHD wind-driven disc evolution -- Confronting theory and observation
• A photo-evaporative gap in the closest planet forming disc
• The Evolution Of The Inner Regions of Protoplanetary Disks
• The Frequency Of Binary Star Interlopers Amongst Transitional Discs
• What happened before? -- The disks around the precursors of young Herbig Ae/Be stars
• Photoevaporation of protoplanetary discs with PLUTO+PRIZMO I. Lower X-ray-driven mass-loss rates due to enhanced cooling
• The long-term evolution of photoevaporating transition discs with giant planets
• Stellar Oblateness versus Distant Giants in Exciting Kepler Planet Mutual Inclinations
• Towards a population synthesis of discs and planets. II. Confronting disc models and observations at the population level
• Forbidden line diagnostics of photoevaporative disc winds
• How does accretion of planet-forming disks influence stellar abundances?
• Strong Biases in Estimating the Time Dependence of Mass Accretion Rates in Young Stars
• Testing protoplanetary disc dispersal with radio emission
• The importance of X-ray frequency in driving photoevaporative winds
• Rapid radiative clearing of protoplanetary discs
• Exoplanet atmosphere evolution: emulation with neural networks
• High-resolution [OI] line spectral mapping of TW Hya consistent with X-ray driven photoevaporation
• The general applicability of self-similar solutions for thermal disc winds
• Millimeter emission in photoevaporating disks is determined by early substructures
• Circumstellar discs: What will be next?
• Giant planet migration during the disc dispersal phase
• The fulcrum wavelength of young stellar objects -- the case of LRLL 31
• Testing photoevaporation and MHD disk wind models through future high-angular resolution radio observations: the case of TW Hydrae
• A study of accretion and disk diagnostics in the NGC 2264 cluster
• The interplay between forming planets and photo-evaporating discs I: Forbidden line diagnostics
• The interplay between forming planets and photoevaporating discs II: Wind-driven gas redistribution
• Planet formation in evolving protoplanetary discs
• The Dispersal of Planet-forming discs: Theory confronts Observations
• Modelling the secular evolution of proto-planetary disc dust sizes -- A comparison between the viscous and magnetic wind case
• The dispersal of protoplanetary discs -- III: Influence of stellar mass on disc photoevaporation