NSF Award
9217912
This award supports a two-year collaborative research project between Professor Stephen E. Strom and four other astronomers from the Five College Astronomy Department, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and Professor Yasuo Fukui of Nagoya University. The investigators will carry out molecular line observations of circumstellar disks associated with solar-type stars spanning a range in ages from t - 1 Myr to t - 50 Myr. The goals are to determine the physical and chemical properties of circumstellar disks associated with young solar-type stars and evolutionary changes in the disk gas mass from the time solar-type stars first become visible to the time when all circumstellar gas has been accreted by the star, dispersed or accreted onto rocky cores to form giant, gas-rich planets. The project combines sensitive molecular line observations obtained using both U.S. and Japanese mm-wave telescopes, with infrared and mm-continuum measurements obtained at the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility (ITRF) and the Cal Tech Sub-Millimeter Observatory (CSO). The ultimate success of the project depends on using the world's largest mm-wave antenna -- the 45-m Nobeyama Radio Observatory telescope -- and the Nobeyama Millimeter Wave Interferometer to measure gas emission from circumstellar disks at ultra high sensitivity. A total of nine astronomers, five from the United States and four from Japan, are participating in this project.
