Grain Growth and Dust Segregation Revealed by Multiwavelength Analysis of the Class I Protostellar Disk WL 17

Abstract

The first step toward planet formation is grain growth from (sub)micrometer to millimeter/centimeter sizes. Grain growth has been reported not only in Class II protoplanetary disks but also in Class 0/I protostellar envelopes. However, early-stage grain growth occurring in Class 0/I stages has rarely been observed on the protostellar disk scale. Here we present the results from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array Band 3 (λ = 3.1 mm) and 7 (λ = 0.87 mm) archival data of the Class I protostellar disk WL 17 in the ρ Ophiuchus molecular cloud. Disk substructures are found in both bands, but they are different: while a central hole and a symmetric ring appear in Band 3, an off-center hole and an asymmetric ring are shown in Band 7. Furthermore, we obtain an asymmetric spectral index map with a low mean value of α = 2.28 ± 0.02, suggestive of grain growth and dust segregation on the protostellar disk scale. Our radiative transfer modeling verifies these two features by demonstrating that 10 cm sized large grains are symmetrically distributed, whereas 10 μm sized small grains are asymmetrically distributed. In addition, the analysis shows that the disk is expected to be massive and gravitationally unstable. We thus suggest a single Jupiter-mass protoplanet formed by gravitational instability as the origin of the ring-like structure, grain growth, and dust segregation identified in WL 17.