2006A&A...448L...5G

We report the detection of the J=2-1 line of DCO⁺ in the proto-planetary disk of DM Tau and re-analyze the spectrum covering the 465 GHz transition of HDO in this source, recently published by Ceccarelli et al. (2005ApJ...631L..81C). A modelling of the DCO⁺ line profile with the source parameters derived from high resolution HCO⁺ observations yields a DCO⁺/HCO⁺ abundance ratio of ≃4x10^–3, an order of magnitude smaller than that derived in the low mass cores. The re-analysis of the 465 GHz spectrum, using the proper continuum flux (0.5Jy) and source systemic velocity (6.05km/s), makes it clear that the absorption features attributed to HDO and C₆H are almost certainly unrelated to these species. We show that the line-to-continuum ratio of an absorption line in front of a Keplerian disk can hardly exceed the ratio of the turbulent velocity to the projected rotation velocity at the disk edge, unless the line is optically very thick (τ>10⁴). This ratio is typically 0.1-0.3 in proto-planetary disks and is ≃0.15 in DM Tau, much smaller than that for the alleged absorption features. We also show that the detection of H₂D⁺ in DM Tau, previously reported by these authors, is only a 2-sigma detection when the proper velocity is adopted. So far, DCO⁺ is thus the only deuterated molecule clearly detected in proto-planetary disks.