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International audience; The evolution of young stars and disks is driven by the interplay of several processes, notably the accretion and ejection of material. These processes, critical to correctly describe the conditions of planet formation, are best probed spectroscopically. Between 2020 and 2022, about 500orbits of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) are being devoted in to the ULLYSES public survey of about 70 low-mass ( M ⋆ ≤ 2 M ⊙ ) young (age < 10 Myr) stars at UV wavelengths. Here, we present the PENELLOPE Large Program carried out with the ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT) with the aim of acquiring, contemporaneously to the HST, optical ESPRESSO/UVES high-resolution spectra for the purpose of investigating the kinematics of the emitting gas, along with UV-to-NIR X-shooter medium-resolution flux-calibrated spectra to provide the fundamental parameters that HST data alone cannot provide, such as extinction and stellar properties. The data obtained by PENELLOPE have no proprietary time and the fully reduced spectra are being made available to the whole community. Here, we describe the data and the first scientific analysis of the accretion properties for the sample of 13 targets located in the Orion OB1 association and in the σ -Orionis cluster, observed in November–December 2020. We find that the accretion rates are in line with those observed previously in similarly young star-forming regions, with a variability on a timescale of days (≲3). The comparison of the fits to the continuum excess emission obtained with a slab model on the X-shooter spectra and the HST/STIS spectra shows a shortcoming in the X-shooter estimates of ≲10%, which is well within the assumed uncertainty. Its origin can be either due to an erroneous UV extinction curve or to the simplicity of the modeling and, thus, this question will form the basis of the investigation undertaken over the course of the PENELLOPE program. The combined ULLYSES and PENELLOPE data will be key in attaining a better understanding of the accretion and ejection mechanisms in young stars.

Class III stars are those in star forming regions without large non-photospheric infrared emission, suggesting recent dispersal of their protoplanetary discs. We observed 30 class III stars in the 1–3 Myr Lupus region with ALMA at ∼856μm, resulting in four detections that we attribute to circumstellar dust. Inferred dust masses are 0.036–0.093M⊕, ∼1 order of magnitude lower than any previous measurements; one disc is resolved with radius ∼80 au. Two class II sources in the field of view were also detected, and 11 other sources, consistent with sub-mm galaxy number counts. Stacking non-detections yields a marginal detection with mean dust mass ∼0.0048M⊕. We searched for gas emission from the CO J = 3–2 line, and present its detection to NO Lup inferring a gas mass (4.9 ± 1.1) × 10−5 M⊕ and gas-to-dust ratio 1.0 ± 0.4. Combining our survey with class II sources shows a gap in the disc mass distribution from 0.09–2M⊕ for ${\gt}0.7\, \mathrm{M}_\odot$ Lupus stars, evidence of rapid dispersal of mm-sized dust from protoplanetary discs. The class III disc mass distribution is consistent with a population model of planetesimal belts that go on to replenish the debris discs seen around main sequence stars. This suggests that planetesimal belt formation does not require long-lived protoplanetary discs, i.e. planetesimals form within ∼2 Myr. While all four class III discs are consistent with collisional replenishment, for two the gas and/or mid-IR emission could indicate primordial circumstellar material in the final stages of protoplanetary disc dispersal. Two class III stars without sub-mm detections exhibit hot emission that could arise from ongoing planet formation processes inside ∼1 au.

A relation between the mass accretion rate onto the central young star and the mass of the surrounding protoplanetary disk has long been theoretically predicted and observationally sought. For the first time, we have accurately and homogeneously determined the photospheric parameters, mass accretion rate, and disk mass for an essentially complete sample of young stars with disks in the Lupus clouds. Our work combines the results of surveys conducted with VLT/X-Shooter and ALMA. With this dataset we are able to test a basic prediction of viscous accretion theory, the existence of a linear relation between the mass accretion rate onto the central star and the total disk mass. We find a correlation between the mass accretion rate and the disk dust mass, with a ratio that is roughly consistent with the expected viscous timescale when assuming an interstellar medium (ISM) gas-to-dust ratio. This confirms that mass accretion rates are related to the properties of the outer disk. We find no correlation between mass accretion rates and the disk mass measured by CO isotopologues emission lines, possibly owing to the small number of measured disk gas masses. This suggests that the mm-sized dust mass better traces the total disk mass and that masses derived from CO may be underestimated, at least in some cases., C.F.M. gratefully acknowledges an ESA Research Fellowship. G.R. is supported by the DISCSIM project, grant agreement 341137 funded by the European Research Council under ERC-2013-ADG. A.N. would like to acknowledge funding from Science Foundation Ireland (Grant 13/ERC/I2907). Leiden is supported by the European Union A-ERC grant 291141 CHEMPLAN, by the Netherlands Research School for Astronomy (NOVA), and by grant 614.001.352 from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO). JPW and MA were supported by NSF and NASA grants AST-1208911 and NNX15AC92G., This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from EDP Sciences via http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201628549

RW Aur is a young binary system showing strong signatures of a recent tidal encounter between the circumprimary disk and the secondary star. The primary star has recently undergone two major dimming events ($\Delta$mag $\approx$ 2 in V-band), whose origin is still under debate. To shed light on the mechanism leading to the dimming events, we study the extinction properties, accretion variability, and gas kinematics using absorption lines from the material obscuring star RW Aur A. We compare our moderate resolution X-Shooter spectra of the dim state of RW Aur A with other spectral observations. In particular, we analyse archival high resolution UVES spectra obtained during the bright state of the system, in order to track the evolution of the spectral properties across the second dimming event. The spectrum obtained during the dim state shows narrow absorption lines in the Na and K optical doublets, where the former is saturated. With a velocity of -60 km/s these lines indicate that during the dim state the disk wind is either enhanced, or significantly displaced into the line of sight. The photometric evolution across the dimming event shows a gray extinction, and is correlated with a significant reduction of the EW of all photospheric lines. Emission lines tracing accretion do not vary significantly across the dimming. We conclude that the dimming event is related to a major perturbation on the inner disk. We suggest that the inner disk is occulting (most of) the star, and thus its photosphere, but is not occulting the accretion regions within a few stellar radii. Since observations of the outer disk indicate that the disk is modestly inclined (45 - 60 deg), we propose that the inner disk might be warped by a yet unseen (sub-)stellar companion, which may also explain the 2.77 day periodic variability of the spectral lines.

We analyze the dust morphology of 29 transition disks (TDs) observed with ALMA at (sub-) millimeter-emission. We perform the analysis in the visibility plane to characterize the total flux, cavity size, and shape of the ring-like structure. First, we found that the $M_{\rm{dust}}-M_\star$ relation is much flatter for TDs than the observed trends from samples of class II sources in different star forming regions. This relation demonstrates that cavities open in high (dust) mass disks, independent of the stellar mass. The flatness of this relation contradicts the idea that TDs are a more evolved set of disks. Two potential reasons (not mutually exclusive) may explain this flat relation: the emission is optically thick or/and millimeter-sized particles are trapped in a pressure bump. Second, we discuss our results of the cavity size and ring width in the context of different physical processes for cavity formation. Photoevaporation is an unlikely leading mechanism for the origin of the cavity of any of the targets in the sample. Embedded giant planets or dead zones remain as potential explanations. Although both models predict correlations between the cavity size and the ring shape for different stellar and disk properties, we demonstrate that with the current resolution of the observations, it is difficult to obtain these correlations. Future observations with higher angular resolution observations of TDs with ALMA will help to discern between different potential origins of cavities in TDs., Comment: Minor changes after language edition. Accepted for publication in ApJ

Transition disks with large dust cavities around young stars are promising targets for studying planet formation. Previous studies have revealed the presence of gas cavities inside the dust cavities hinting at recently formed, giant planets. However, many of these studies are biased towards the brightest disks in the nearby star forming regions, and it is not possible to derive reliable statistics that can be compared with exoplanet populations. We present the analysis of 11 transition disks with large cavities (>20 AU radius) from a complete disk survey of the Lupus star forming region, using ALMA Band 7 observations at 0.3" (22-30 AU radius) resolution of the 345 GHz continuum, 13CO and C18O 3-2 observations and the Spectral Energy Distribution of each source. Gas and dust surface density profiles are derived using the physical-chemical modeling code DALI. This is the first study of transition disks of large cavities within a complete disk survey within a star forming region. The dust cavity sizes range from 20-90 AU radius and in three cases, a gas cavity is resolved as well. The deep drops in gas density and large dust cavity sizes are consistent with clearing by giant planets. The fraction of transition disks with large cavities in Lupus is ~11%, which is inconsistent with exoplanet population studies of giant planets at wide orbits. Furthermore, we present a hypothesis of an evolutionary path for large massive disks evolving into transition disks with large cavities., 29 pages, 15 figures, Accepted by ApJ