Early Planet Formation in Embedded Disks (eDisk). XXIV. Systematic Investigation of Disk Structures based on Visibility Analysis

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Abstract
The dust continuum emission from young protostellar disks encodes key information about their mass distribution and early evolution, yet uniform high-resolution comparative studies remain limited. We present a systematic uv-plane analysis of parametric intensity models applied to Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) Band-6 (1.3 mm) observations of 23 disks (19 protostellar systems, with four being in binary) from the eDisk sample, spanning Gaussian profiles to power-law cores with exponential tails (PLCT), including asymmetric extensions. Gaussian models generally fail to reproduce the centrally peaked emission and extended outer structure observed in most disks, whereas the PLCT framework provides a significantly improved description of radial brightness profiles. Incorporating azimuthal asymmetries further reduces residuals in 15 of 17 inclined disks, indicating that departures from axisymmetry are common at early stages. Only two disks, L1489 IRS and Oph IRS63, exhibit clear gap and ring substructures, while most appear smooth at the spatial resolution and sensitivity of our observations. These systems are among the most evolved in the sample, and the absence of flat-spectrum sources limits the evolutionary range probed, suggesting that the detection of prominent gaps and rings is not common in the earliest phases of disk evolution. Using a uniform definition of disk radius based on the 95% enclosed flux, we find a positive correlation with stellar mass, R disk ∝ M ⋆ 1.5 ± 0.1 , with disks in binary systems systematically smaller than those around isolated protostars. While the models capture overall morphology and large-scale asymmetries, distinguishing intrinsic structures from radiative transfer effects in optically thick regions remains challenging.

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