Disks and Halos in Pre-Main-Sequence Stars

Abstract

We study the IR emission from flared disks with and without additional optically thin halos. Flux calculations of a flared disk in vacuum can be considered a special case of the more general family of models in which the disk is imbedded in an optically thin halo. In the absence of such halo, flux measurements can never rule out its existence because the disk flaring surface defines a mathematically equivalent halo that produces the exact same flux at all IR wavelengths. When a flared disk with height H at its outer radius R is imbedded in a halo whose optical depth at visual wavelengths is \tau\sub{halo}, the system IR flux is dominated by the halo whenever \tau\sub{halo} > (1/4)H/R. Even when its optical depth is much smaller, the halo can still have a significant effect on the disk temperature profile. Imaging is the only way to rule out the existence of a potential halo, and we identify a decisive test that extracts a signature unique to flared disks from imaging observations.