Observing the evolution of exoplanet-forming disks at 0.01-10 au with gas, dust, and wind tracers

I will present results from a multi-wavelength and multi-tracer campaign to observe the evolution of protoplanetary disks at 0.01-10 au at the time of exoplanet formation. The backbone of this work is the combined analysis of recent surveys of moderate-to-high-resolution spectroscopy (R ~ 700- 100,000) of molecular gas emission at infrared wavelengths (2.9-35 um), as collected from a suite of instruments on the ground and in space (VLT-CRIRES, VLT-VISIR, Spitzer-IRS, Keck-NIRSPEC, IRTF-iSHELL). I will present and discuss three major findings of this campaign, as published in a series of papers in the last few years: 1) the location and excitation of CO gas reveals the formation of disk cavities and gaps in the 0.01-10 au disk region, 2) these cavities show a large depletion of both dust and gas, with some structures that models propose to be related to planet-disk interactions, and 3) disk chemistry evolves during formation of these cavities, with inner disks being dried-up from their water. I will mention new directions that we are investigating in synergy with the kinematics and evolution of disk-dispersing winds, with new results from a survey of high-resolution [OI] spectra. (I'd be happy to focus more on a few specific aspects of this large multi-faceted work depending on what the SOC finds best for the session in which they wish me to speak)