CO gas inside the protoplanetary disk cavity in HD 142527: disk structure from ALMA

Inner cavities and annular gaps in circumstellar disks are possible signposts of giant planet formation. The young star HD142527 hosts a massive protoplanetary disk with a large cavity that extends up to 140 AU from the central star, as seen in continuum images at infrared and millimeter wavelengths. Estimates of the survival of gas inside disk cavities are needed to discriminate between clearing scenarios. We present a spatially and spectrally resolved carbon monoxide isotopologue observations of the gas-rich disk HD142527, in the J = 2-1 line of (CO)-C-12, (CO)-C-13, and (CO)-O-18 obtained with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). We detect emission coming from inside the dust-depleted cavity in all three isotopologues. Based on our analysis of the gas in the dust cavity, the (CO)-C-12 emission is optically thick, while (CO)-C-13 and C18O emissions are both optically thin. The total mass of residual gas inside the cavity is similar to 1.5-2 M-Jup. We model the gas with an axisymmetric disk model. Our best-fit model shows that the cavity radius is much smaller in CO than it is in millimeter continuum and scattered light observations, with a gas cavity that does not extend beyond 105AU (at 3 sigma). The gap wall at its outer edge is diffuse and smooth in the gas distribution, while in dust continuum it is manifestly sharper. The inclination angle, as estimated from the high velocity channel maps, is 28 +/- 0.5 deg, higher than in previous estimates, assuming a fix central star mass of 2.2 M-circle dot.