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Photoevaporation driven by hydrogen-ionizing extreme-ultraviolet (EUV) radiation profoundly shapes the lives of diverse astrophysical objects. We construct an analytical model accounting for the finite timescales of photoheating and photoionization and apply it to the dispersal of protoplanetary disks. The model yields improved estimates for the ionization, temperature, and velocity versus distance from the central source when compared to the classical picture of fully ionized and isothermal winds with temperatures ≈10 ^4 K and speeds ≈10 km s ^−1 . In contrast to the classical picture, the photoevaporative winds take on several distinct hydrodynamical and thermochemical states depending on the central star’s EUV emission rate and spectral hardness: T Tauri stars with EUV luminosities around 10 ^30 erg s ^−1 drive nonisothermal ionized disk winds at lower temperatures than the classical value if the spectrum is soft, with an average deposited energy per photoionization less than about 3.7 eV. If, however, the spectrum is hard, the winds tend to be atomic and isothermal at most disk radii. For lower EUV intensities, even with soft spectra, atomic winds can emerge beyond ∼10 au through advection. We show that these predictions are in general agreement with detailed radiation hydrodynamics calculations. The model furthermore illustrates how the energy efficiency of photoevaporation varies with the intensity and spectral hardness of the EUV illumination, as well as addressing discrepancies in the literature around the effectiveness of X-ray photoevaporation. The findings highlight the importance of the photoheating and photoionization timescales both for modeling and for understanding winds’ observed behavior.

While most debris disks consist of dust with little or no gas, a fraction have significant amounts of gas detected via emission lines of CO, ionized carbon, and/or atomic oxygen. Almost all such gaseous debris disks known are around A-type stars with ages up to 50 Myr. We show, using semianalytic disk evolution modeling, that this can be understood if the gaseous debris disks are remnant protoplanetary disks that have become depleted of small grains compared to the interstellar medium. Photoelectric heating by the A stars’ far-UV (FUV) radiation is then inefficient, while the stars’ extreme-UV (EUV) and X-ray emissions are weak owing to a lack of surface convective zones capable of driving magnetic activity. In this picture, it is relatively difficult for stars outside the range of spectral types from A through early B to have such long-lived gas disks. Less-massive stars have stronger magnetic activity in the chromosphere, transition region, and corona with resulting EUV and X-ray emission, while more-massive stars have photospheres hot enough to produce strong EUV radiation. In both cases, primordial disk gas is likely to photoevaporate well before 50 Myr. These results come from 0D disk evolution models where we incorporate internal accretion stresses, MHD winds, and photoevaporation by EUV and X-ray photons with luminosities that are functions of the stellar mass and age. A key issue this work leaves open is how some disks become depleted in small dust so that FUV photoevaporation slows. Candidates include the grains’ growth, settling, radial drift, radiation force, and incorporation into planetary systems.

Deuterium fractionation in molecules is known as one of the most powerful tools to study chemical processes during star and planet formation. Among various interstellar molecules, methanol often shows very high deuterium fractionation. It is the most abundant saturated organic molecule and is known as a parent species to form more complex organic molecules. However, deriving the abundance of deuterated methanol suffers from the uncertainty in the intrinsic line intensities ( S μ ^2 ) of CH _3 OH isotopologues. Due to their floppy nature, theoretical evaluation of the S μ ^2 values is not straightforward, particularly for asymmetric-top asymmetric-frame isotopologues such as CH _2 DOH. In this study, we have measured the line frequencies and their intensities for CH _2 DOH in the millimeter-wave region from 216 to 264 GHz by using an emission-type millimeter and submillimeter-wave spectrometer. For the a -type J = 5 − 4 transition, the derived S μ ^2 values are 13%–27% larger than those theoretically calculated, except for the transitions of K _a = 2 for e _0 and K _a = 1 for e _1 affected by avoided level crossing. For b -type transitions, significant systematic differences are found between theoretical and experimental S μ ^2 values. The results of the present study enable us to accurately derive from observations the CH _2 DOH abundances, which are essential for understanding deuterium fractionation in various sources.

Methanol (CH _3 OH) is an abundant interstellar species and is known to be an important precursor of various interstellar complex organic molecules. Among the methanol isotopologues, CH _2 DOH is one of the most abundant isotopologues and it is often used to study the deuterium fractionation of CH _3 OH in interstellar medium. However, the emission lines of CH _2 DOH can sometimes be optically thick, making the derivation of its abundance unreliable. Therefore, observations of its presumably optically thin ^13 C substituted species, ^13 CH _2 DOH, are essential to overcome this issue. In this study, the rotational transitions of ^13 CH _2 DOH have been measured in the millimeter-wave region from 216 GHz to 264 GHz with an emission-type millimeter- and submillimeter-wave spectrometer by using a deuterium and ^13 C enriched sample. The frequency accuracy of measured ^13 CH _2 DOH is less than a few kHz, and the relative line intensity error is less than 10% in most of the frequency range by taking advantage of the wide simultaneous frequency-coverage of the emission-type spectrometer. These results offer a good opportunity to detect ^13 CH _2 DOH in space, which will allow us to study the deuterium fractionation of CH _3 OH in various sources through accurate determination of the CH _2 DOH abundance.