The nature and composition of planetary systems depend on how the protoplanetary disk evolves during its brief, few-million year lifetime. Disk evolution is in turn tied to basic hydrodynamical properties such as the density and temperature structure. Although disks predominantly consist of gas, tracing even these very basic properties of the gas disk has been a difficult task. In this talk, I will attempt to review our progress in understanding the role of chemistry in determining disk physical conditions, and focus on gas cooling which is mainly by chemical species of relatively low abundances. I will describe both pure gas phase and gas-grain chemical models of disks, resulting line emission predictions, and their comparison to observations.  I will further discuss some current uncertainties in disk chemistry, and how improvements in theory can help us better interpret disk conditions from their emission.<br/>

Gaining insights into protoplanetary disk conditions from chemistry

255th National Meeting (2018)

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