The inner region of planet-forming disks from the VLTI/MATISSE GTO YSO survey
Marten Scheuck
Tuesday, Dec. 3rd, 12:10CET
Protoplanetary and accretion disks around young stars constitute one of the major scientific cases of the MATISSE instrument on the Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI). Our contribution to the Heidelberg-Harvard workshop is based on the first years of operation of the MATISSE young stellar object (YSO) survey. A survey of around a hundred young stars and young stellar objects has been undertaken with MATISSE in the mid-infrared at 3-13 µm, parallel to the surveys carried out in the near-infrared with the second-generation VLTI instruments PIONIER and GRAVITY, and in the millimeter domain with ALMA. With milliarcsecond angular resolution and access to the spectral signatures of the gas and dust, MATISSE makes it possible to study the inner regions of the disks (~0.5 – 10 au). This enables the detection and study of fine structures (gaps, spirals, dust concentrations), which was previously unattainable, as well as the characterization of the composition and physical properties of the primordial building blocks of planets. We will present the current progress of the MATISSE GTO survey on young stellar objects (T Tauri stars, Herbig Ae/Be stars and massive YSOs) and debris disks, and present an overview of first results. In the immediate future, we aim to exploit the VLTI infrastructure upgrades from GRAVITY+ and the MATISSE-Wide capabilities currently under preparation, which together will provide an extension of the YSO observations to faint and embedded sources, as well as the possibility to carry out joint YSO surveys with other interferometric instruments at infrared and submillimeter wavelengths. Such joint multi-spectral programs are required for performing detailed radiative transfer modeling and interpretation at scales ranging from the innermost regions of the disk to the outer mass reservoir.