AC Her: Evidence of the First Polar Circumbinary Planet

Abstract

We examine the geometry of the post–asymptotic giant branch (AGB) star binary AC Her and its circumbinary disk. We show that the observations describe a binary orbit that is perpendicular to the disk with an angular momentum vector that is within 9° of the binary eccentricity vector, meaning that the disk is close to a stable polar alignment. The most likely explanation for the very large inner radius of the dust is a planet within the circumbinary disk. This is therefore both the first reported detection of a polar circumbinary disk around a post-AGB binary and the first evidence of a polar circumbinary planet. We consider the dynamical constraints on the circumbinary disk size and mass. The polar circumbinary disk feeds circumstellar disks with gas on orbits that are highly inclined with respect to the binary orbit plane. The resulting circumstellar disk inclination could be anywhere from coplanar to polar depending upon the competition between the mass accretion and binary torques.