First JVLA Radio Observation on PDS 70

Abstract

Abstract PDS 70 is a protoplanetary system that hosts two actively accreting gas giants, namely, PDS 70b and PDS 70 c. The system has a ∼60–100 au dusty ring that has been resolved by the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA), along with circumplanetary disks around the two gas giants. Here, we report the first Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (JVLA) Q- (40–48 GHz), Ka- (29–37 GHz), K- (18–26 GHz), and X- (8–12 GHz) bands' continuum observations, and the complementary ALMA Bands 3 (∼98 GHz) and 4 (∼145 GHz) observations towards PDS 70. The dusty ring appears azimuthally asymmetric in our ALMA images. We obtained firm detections at Ka and K bands without spatially resolving the source; we obtained a marginal detection at Q band, and no detection at X band. The spectral indices (α) are 5 ± 1 at 33–44 GHz and 0.6 ± 0.2 at 22–33 GHz. At 10–22 GHz, the conservative lower limit of α is 1.7. The 33–44 GHz flux density is likely dominated by the optically thin thermal emission of grown dust with ≳1 mm maximum grain sizes, which may be associated with the azimuthally asymmetric substructure induced by planet–disk interaction. Since PDS 70 was not detected at X band, we found it hard to explain the low spectral index at 22–33 GHz only with free–free emission. Hence, we attribute the dominant emission at 22–33 GHz to the emission of spinning nano-meter-sized dust particles, while free–free emission may partly contribute to emission at this frequency range. In some protoplanetary disks, the emission of spinning nano-meter-sized dust particles may resemble the 20–50 GHz excess in the spectra of millimeter-sized dust. The finding of strong continuum emission of spinning nano-meter-sized particles can complicate the procedure of constraining the properties of grown dust. Future high resolution, multifrequency JVLA/Next Generation Very Large Array and Square Kilometer Array observations may shed light on this issue.