Early Planet Formation in Embedded Disks (eDisk). XXV. Inclination-Induced Minor-Axis Brightness Asymmetries Reveal Limited Dust Settling in Embedded Protostellar Disks
How and when dust settles in young protostellar disks is a key open question for the dust concentration needed to form planetesimals and, ultimately, planets. However, directly measuring the vertical dust distribution in embedded (Class 0/I) systems remains challenging. We show that brightness asymmetry along the minor axis of highly inclined disks provides a simple, powerful geometric diagnostic of vertical dust structure. Using radiative transfer modeling with RADMC-3D, we generate synthetic c…