ICC-DAM Seminar. Carlos Carrasco González: “Observing Planet Formation with the VLA at the ALMA era” [NOT TRANSLATED]

We are at present in a very exciting era for the study of how planets form. During the previous decades, observations with powerful radiointerferometers, specially the Very Large Array (VLA), have well established that planet formation is a natural consequence of the star formation process itself.

Planets are most probably formed as dust evolve in the circumstellar disks around Young Stellar Objects (YSOs). It is now that, the extraordinary observing capabilities of the Atacama Large Millimetre Array (ALMA) are offering us an unprecedented level of detail of circumstellar disks around YSOs.

The recent ALMA observations with very high angular resolutions of several disks are revealing several structures, consequences of the dust evolution, and most probably associated with the initial stages and/or ongoing planet formation. However, the contribution of the VLA to this field has not yet finished. Instead, the VLA with its recent upgrade, is still in the race and it is indeed revealing itself as a fundamental instrument to investigate the planet formation process. It seems necessary to still observe at longer millimetre wavelengths than ALMA in order to be able to penetrate very dense regions in the disks.

This is especially critical at the earliest stages and at the innermost parts of the disks where, for example, terrestrial planets are expected to form. Here, I will present some very recent observations with the VLA of two very young circumstellar disks (HL Tau and HD 169142). I will also discuss how the combination of VLA and ALMA images is what actually could provide a giant step in the understanding of the planet formation process. [NOT TRANSLATED]