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 (3.1 mm) and 7 (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 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.