Observational studies of gas in protoplanetary disks [Elektronische Ressource] / presented by Andrés Carmona Gonzalez

Dissertationsubmitted to theCombined Faculties for the Natural Sciences and for Mathematicsof the Ruperto-Carola University of Heidelberg, Germanyfor the degree ofDoctor of Natural Sciencespresented byDiplom-Ingenieur, MSc, MA, Andres´ Carmona Gonzalezborn in Bogota,´ ColombiaOral examination: 25 July 2007Observational Studies of Gasin Protoplanetary DisksReferees: Prof. Dr. Thomas HenningDr. Mario E. van den AnckerAbstract – ZusammenfassungO      The gas dominates the mass and dynamics of protoplanetary disks. However, very few observational constraints existabout the physical properties of the gas in the planet forming region of the disks. This thesis presents an ensemble of newobservational projects aimed at studying the gas in the disks of selected nearby Herbig Ae/Be stars (HAEBES) and clas-sical T Tauri stars (CTTS). In the first chapter we present a search for CO 4.7µm ro-vibrational emission from HAEBESusing ISAAC, ESO’s first generation VLT near-infrared spectrograph. In the second chapter, we describe a project inwhich we intended to probe the outer cold gas of protoplanetary disks, by measuring gas absorption features of the disksuperimposed on the optical spectra of close (<1.5”) visual companions of nearby HAEBES utilizing FORS2, ESO’s VLToptical spectrograph. In the third chapter, we present a large observational effort to detect H fundamental rotational2emission at 12.278 and 17.