The Onset of Planet Formation in Brown Dwarf Disks

doi:10.1126/science.1118042

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Originally published in Science Express on 20 October 2005
Science 4 November 2005:
Vol. 310. no. 5749, pp. 834 - 836
DOI: 10.1126/science.1118042

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The Onset of Planet Formation in Brown Dwarf Disks

Dániel Apai,¹^,2^* Ilaria Pascucci,¹^* Jeroen Bouwman,³ Antonella Natta,⁴ Thomas Henning,³ Cornelis P. Dullemond³

The onset of planet formation in protoplanetary disks is markedby the growth and crystallization of sub–micrometer-sizeddust grains accompanied by dust settling toward the disk mid-plane.Here, we present infrared spectra of disks around brown dwarfsand brown dwarf candidates. We show that all three processesoccur in such cool disks in a way similar or identical to thatin disks around low- and intermediate-mass stars. These resultsindicate that the onset of planet formation extends to disksaround brown dwarfs, suggesting that planet formation is a robustprocess occurring in most young circumstellar disks.

¹ Steward Observatory, University of Arizona, 933 North Cherry Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA.
² NASA Astrobiology Institute, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA 94035, USA.
³ Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Königstuhl 17, Heidelberg, D-69117, Germany.
⁴ Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri, Instituto Nazionale di Astrofisica, Largo E. Fermi 5, I-50125 Firenze, Italy.

^* These authors contributed equally to this work.

To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: apai{at}as.arizona.edu

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