We aim to study the radial and vertical extents of 12 CO gas, millimeter (mm) dust thermal emission and optical/near-infrared scattered light by dust in highly inclined protoplanetary disks. These parameters are indicators of radial drift and vertical settling, and essential to setting better constraints on planet formation. Additionally, we aim to provide estimates of the dynamical stellar masses, including cases where no such prior measurements exist. We analyzed a sample of 14 highly inclined protoplanetary disks for which the vertical extent of the emission layers could be constrained directly. We presented ALMA high-angular-resolution band 7 (0. 9, mm) continuum images and 12 CO (3-2) gas moment maps, as well as HST and VLT/SPHERE scattered light images. We estimated the dynamical masses using position-velocity diagrams. The majority of disks in our sample (11 out of 14) follow R_ > R_ m > R_ significantly tightened once fluxes have been corrected for the disk inclination. This is consistent with the disks being optically thick at mm wavelengths. Regarding the vertical extent defined as the apparent emitting height, most disks in our sample follow H_, mm, while the other 3 disks (including 2 residing in multiple systems) appear to be more extended in the mm continuum than in scattered light. Highly inclined disks tend to appear less radially extended in CO gas line emission than in the mm dust continuum, compared to less inclined disks. This results from optical depth effects and/or radial drift. The known correlation between disk size and the mm continuum and line fluxes have been confirmed on the basis of our sample, with highly inclined disks shown to be significantly fainter than disks seen at a lower inclination for a given disk radius. We found that this correlation is > H_, , mm. This strengthens our previous findings, which state that the mm dust is highly decoupled from the gas and forms a layer in the disk midplane that is attributed to vertical settling. Most disks appear more vertically extended in gas than in scattered light, suggesting that the micron-sized (μm-sized) dust is not fully coupled to the gas. We also estimated the dynamical masses, for the first time, for the majority of the objects in our sample. We found an anticorrelation between the dynamical mass and the aspect ratio, emphasizing the dominant role of gravity in setting the disk vertical extent. However, we found no correlation with the disk radius.
Martinien et al. (Mon,) studied this question.