Shaping the CO snowline in protoplanetary disks

Abstract

Context. Characterizing the dust thermal structure in protoplanetary disks is a fundamental task because the dust surface temperature can affect both the planetary formation and the chemical evolution. Because the temperature depends on many parameters, including the grain size, it can be challenging to properly model the grain temperature structure. Many chemistry disk models usually employ a sophisticated single dust structure designed to reproduce the effect of a realistic population presumably composed of a large diversity of sizes. This generally represents a good approximation in most cases. Nonetheless, it dilutes the effects of the complex radiative interactions between the different grain populations on the resulting dust temperature, and thus, the chemistry. Aims. We seek to show that the radiative interactions between dust grains of different sizes can induce a nontrivial dust temperature structure that cannot be reproduced by a single dust population and that can significantly affect the chemical outcome. Methods. The disk thermal structures were computed using the Monte Carlo radiative transfer code RADMC-3D. The thermal structures were postprocessed using the gas-grain code NAUTILUS to calculate the evolution of the chemical abundance. Results. We find that simultaneously using at least two independent dust grain populations in disk models produces a complex temperature structure due to the starlight that is intercepted by the upper layers of the disk. In particular, we find that micron-sized dust grains are warmer than larger grains and can even show a radial temperature bump in some conditions. This dust temperature spread between the grain populations results in the segregation of the CO snowline and in an unexpected CO gas hole in the midplane. We compare the results with observed close to edge-on class I/II disks. Conclusions. Our study shows that the size dependence of the dust temperature significantly impacts the chemistry, and that two dust populations at least are required to account for this property of the thermal structure in protoplanetary disk models over a wide range of disk masses and dust properties.