Cosmic Cascades: How Disk Substructure Regulates the Flow of Water to Inner Planetary Systems

Abstract The influx of icy pebbles to the inner regions of protoplanetary disks constitutes a fundamental ingredient in most planet formation theories. The observational determination of the magnitude of this pebble flux and its dependence on disk substructure (disk gaps as pebble traps) would be a significant step forward. In this work, we analyze a sample of 21 T Tauri disks (with ages ≈0.5–2 Myr) using JWST/MIRI spectra homogeneously reduced with the JDISCS pipeline and high-angular-resolution Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) continuum data. We find that the 1500/6000 K water line flux ratio measured with JWST—a tracer of cold water vapor and pebble drift near the snow line—correlates with the radial location of the innermost dust gap in ALMA continuum observations (ranging from 8.7 to 69 au), confirming predictions from recent models that study connections between the inner and outer disk reservoirs. We develop a population synthesis exploration of pebble drift in gapped disks and find a good match to the observed trend for early and relatively effective gaps, while scenarios where pebble drift happens quickly, gaps are very leaky, or where gaps form late, are all disfavored on a population level. Inferred snow line pebble mass fluxes (ranging between 10 −6 and 10 −3 M ⊕ yr −1 depending on gap position) are comparable to fluxes used in pebble accretion studies and those proposed for the inner solar system, while system-to-system variations suggest differences in the emerging planetary system architectures and water budgets.

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Publication Details

Journal
The Astrophysical Journal Letters
Published
2025-09-10
DOI
https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/adfbe3
Citations
4
Primary Topic
Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
4.62
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article

Cosmic Cascades: How Disk Substructure Regulates the Flow of Water to Inner Planetary Systems

Edwin A. Bergin, Karin I. Öberg, Michiel Lambrechts, Feng Long et al.
4 citations
The Astrophysical Journal Letters
Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies
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article

Cosmic Cascades: How Disk Substructure Regulates the Flow of Water to Inner Planetary Systems

Edwin A. Bergin, Karin I. Öberg, Michiel Lambrechts, Feng Long, Colette Salyk, Sebastiaan Krijt, Paola Pinilla, Mayank Narang, Adrien Houge, L. Ilsedore Cleeves, Jane Huang, Andrea Banzatti, K. M. Pontoppidan, María José Colmenares, Geoffrey A. Blake, Miguel Vioque, Till Kaeufer, Ke Zhang, Joe Williams
article en
4 citations

Abstract

Abstract The influx of icy pebbles to the inner regions of protoplanetary disks constitutes a fundamental ingredient in most planet formation theories. The observational determination of the magnitude of this pebble flux and its dependence on disk substructure (disk gaps as pebble traps) would be a significant step forward. In this work, we analyze a sample of 21 T Tauri disks (with ages ≈0.5–2 Myr) using JWST/MIRI spectra homogeneously reduced with the JDISCS pipeline and high-angular-resolution Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) continuum data. We find that the 1500/6000 K water line flux ratio measured with JWST—a tracer of cold water vapor and pebble drift near the snow line—correlates with the radial location of the innermost dust gap in ALMA continuum observations (ranging from 8.7 to 69 au), confirming predictions from recent models that study connections between the inner and outer disk reservoirs. We develop a population synthesis exploration of pebble drift in gapped disks and find a good match to the observed trend for early and relatively effective gaps, while scenarios where pebble drift happens quickly, gaps are very leaky, or where gaps form late, are all disfavored on a population level. Inferred snow line pebble mass fluxes (ranging between 10 −6 and 10 −3 M ⊕ yr −1 depending on gap position) are comparable to fluxes used in pebble accretion studies and those proposed for the inner solar system, while system-to-system variations suggest differences in the emerging planetary system architectures and water budgets.

The Astrophysical Journal LettersVol. 990(2)
California Institute of Technology (US), Vassar College (US), European Southern Observatory (DE), Jet Propulsion Laboratory (US), Texas State University (US), University of Wisconsin–Madison (US), University of Arizona (US), University of Exeter (GB), University of Michigan (US), Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian (US), Geocenter Denmark (DK), University College London (GB), University of Virginia (US), Columbia University (US)
Openalex Percentile: Top 5%
Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies
4.62
DOIOpen Access PDFOpenAlex
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