Observing dust settling and coagulation in circumstellar discs: Selected constraints from high resolution imaging

Abstract: Circumstellar discs are expected to be the nursery of planets. Grain growth within such discs is the first step in the planet formation process in the core-accretion gas-capture scenario. We aim at providing selected criteria on observational quantities derived from multi-wavelength imaging observations that allow to identify dust grain growth and settling. We define a wide-ranged parameter space of discs in various states of their evolution. Using a parametrised model set-up and radiative transfer techniques we compute multi-wavelength images of discs at different inclinations. Using millimetre and sub-millimetre images we are in the position to constrain the process of dust grain growth and sedimentation. However, the degeneracy between parameters prohibit the same achievement using near- to mid-infrared images. Using face-on observations in the N and Q Band, the sedimentation height can be constrained.