Tenuous Disk Research Articles

SMA Detection of an Extreme Millimeter Flare from the Young Class III Star HD 283572

We present evidence of variable 1.3 mm emission from the 1 to 3 Myr, spectral-type G2–G5 class III young stellar object (YSO), HD 283572. HD 283572 was observed on eight dates with the Submillimeter Array between 2021 December and 2023 May, with a total on-source time of 10.2 hr, probing a range of timescales down to 5.2 s. Averaging all data obtained on 2022 January 17 shows a 4.4 mJy (8.8σ) point source detection with a negative spectral index (α = −2.7 ± 1.2), with peak emission rising to 13.8 mJy in one 3 minute span, and 25 mJy in one 29.7 s integration (L ν = 4.7 × 1017 erg s−1 Hz−1). Combining our data for the other seven dates shows no detection, with an rms noise of 0.24 mJy beam−1. The stochastic millimeter enhancements on time frames of seconds–minutes–hours with negative spectral indices are most plausibly explained by synchrotron or gyrosynchrotron radiation from stellar activity. HD 283572's 1.3 mm lightcurve has similarities with variable binaries, suggesting HD 283572's activity may have been triggered by interactions with an as-yet undetected companion. We additionally identify variability of HD 283572 at 10 cm, from VLASS data. This study highlights the challenges of interpreting faint millimeter emission from evolved YSOs that may host tenuous disks, and suggests that a more detailed temporal analysis of spatially unresolved data is generally warranted. The variability of class III stars may open up new ground for understanding the physics of flares in the context of terrestrial planet formation.

Stellar parameters of Be stars observed with X-shooter

Aims.The X-shooter archive of several thousand telluric standard star spectra was skimmed for Be and Be shell stars to derive the stellar fundamental parameters and statistical properties, in particular for the less investigated late-type Be stars and the extension of the Be phenomenon into early A stars.Methods.An adapted version of the BCD method is used, using the Balmer discontinuity parameters to determine effective temperature and surface gravity. This method is optimally suited for late B stars. The projected rotational velocity was obtained by profile fitting to the Mg iilines of the targets, and the spectra were inspected visually for the presence of peculiar features such as the infrared Ca iitriplet or the presence of a double Balmer discontinuity. The Balmer line equivalent widths were measured, but they are only useful for determining the pure emission contribution in a subsample of Be stars owing to uncertainties in determining the photospheric contribution.Results.A total of 78, mostly late-type, Be stars, were identified in the X-shooter telluric standard star archive, out of which 48 had not been reported before. We confirm the general trend that late-type Be stars have more tenuous disks and are less variable than early-type Be stars. The relatively large number (48) of relatively bright (V> 8.5) additional Be stars casts some doubt on the statistics of late-type Be stars; they are more common than currently thought. The Be/B star fraction may not strongly depend on spectral subtype.

Evidence of Dissipation of Circumstellar Disks from L-band Spectra of Bright Galactic Be Stars

We present L-band spectra of the Be stars γ Cas, ϕ Per, 28 Tau, θ CrB, 66 Oph, o Her, and 28 Cyg, obtained through use of the CID-InSb spectrograph with the 2.1-m telescope at OAN/UNAM San Pedro Martir Observatory. This is the first report of L-band spectra of o Her and θ CrB, and of the data obtained with this spectrograph. We obtain flux ratios of hydrogen lines for these stars, finding that they have optically thin envelopes, except by 66 Oph and θ CrB, which do not show evidence of a circumstellar disk. γ Cas and ϕ Per have flux ratio values of hydrogen lines closer to the optically thick case than the other stars. We use the line flux ratio diagram and optical spectra reported in the literature to study the life cycles of the disks. We find clear evidence of the dissipating process of the envelopes of 66 Oph and 28 Cyg, i.e., they are decaying stars. 28 Tau seems to have passed by a similar process. γ Cas and ϕ Per are stable stars because their circumstellar disks do not show notorious changes for many years. Finally, the stars in a build-up phase, whose envelopes are generated after a decaying phase or for the first time, have not yet been observed in the L-band. It would be useful to monitor more Be stars to observe this class of stars that probably change from a very tenuous envelope to an optically thick circumstellar disk. The line flux ratio diagram seems to confirm that late Be stars have more tenuous disks than early-type Be stars, as they tend to be separated at the left bottom and the top right parts of the diagram, respectively. Larger samples of Be stars are needed to confirm this hypothesis through a statistical analysis.

Gas lines from the 5-Myr old optically thin disk around HD 141569A

Context. The gas- and dust dissipation processes in disks around young stars remain uncertain despite numerous studies. At the distance of ~99–116 pc, HD 141569A is one of the nearest HerbigAe stars that is surrounded by a tenuous disk, probably in transition between a massive primordial disk and a debris disk. Atomic and molecular gases have been found in the structured 5-Myr old HD 141569A disk, making HD 141569A the perfect object within which to directly study the gaseous atomic and molecular component.

REMNANT GAS IN EVOLVED CIRCUMSTELLAR DISKS:HERSCHELPACS OBSERVATIONS of 10-100 Myr OLD DISK SYSTEMS

We present Herschel PACS spectroscopy of the [OI] 63 micron gas-line for three circumstellar disk systems showing signs of significant disk evolution and/or planet formation: HR 8799, HD 377 and RX J1852.3-3700. [OI] is undetected toward HR 8799 and HD 377 with 3 sigma upper limits of 6.8 x 10^-18 W m^-2 and 9.9 x 10^-18 W m^-2 respectively. We find an [OI] detection for RX J1852.3-3700 at 12.3 +- 1.8 x 10^-18 W m^-2. We use thermo-chemical disk models to model the gas emission, using constraints on the [OI] 63 micron, and ancillary data to derive gas mass upper limits and constrain gas-to-dust ratios. For HD 377 and HR 8799, we find 3 sigma upper limits on the gas mass of 0.1-20 Mearth. For RX J1852.3-3700, we find two distinct disk scenarios that could explain the detection of [OI] 63 micron and CO(2-1) upper limits reported from the literature: (i) a large disk with gas co-located with the dust (16-500 AU), resulting in a large tenuous disk with ~16 Mearth of gas, or (ii) an optically thick gas disk, truncated at ~70 AU, with a gas mass of 150 Mearth. We discuss the implications of these results for the formation and evolution of planets in these three systems.

WASP-12b as a prolate, inflated and disrupting planet from tidal dissipation

The class of exotic Jupiter-mass planets that orbit very close to their parent stars were not explicitly expected before their discovery. The recently discovered transiting planet WASP-12b has a mass M = 1.4 +/- 0.1 Jupiter masses (M(J)), a mean orbital distance of only 3.1 stellar radii (meaning it is subject to intense tidal forces), and a period of 1.1 days. Its radius 1.79 +/- 0.09R(J) is unexpectedly large and its orbital eccentricity 0.049 +/- 0.015 is even more surprising because such close orbits are usually quickly circularized. Here we report an analysis of its properties, which reveals that the planet is losing mass to its host star at a rate of about 10(-7)M(J) per year. The planet's surface is distorted by the star's gravity and the light curve produced by its prolate shape will differ by about ten per cent from that of a spherical planet. We conclude that dissipation of the star's tidal perturbation in the planet's convective envelope provides the energy source for its large volume. We predict up to 10 mJy CO band-head (2.292 mum) emission from a tenuous disk around the host star, made up of tidally stripped planetary gas. It may also contain a detectable resonant super-Earth, as a hypothetical perturber that continually stirs up WASP-12b's eccentricity.

On the Determination of the Rotational Oblateness of Achernar

The recent interferometric study of Achernar, leading to the conclusion that its geometrical oblateness cannot be explained by the Roche approximation, has stirred substantial interest in the community, in view of its potential impact on many fields of stellar astrophysics. It is the purpose of this Letter to reinterpret the interferometric observations with a fast-rotating, gravity-darkened central star surrounded by a small equatorial disk, whose presence is consistent with contemporaneous spectroscopic data. We find that we can fit the available data only assuming a critically rotating central star. We identified two different disk models that simultaneously fit the spectroscopic, polarimetric, and interferometric observational constraints: a tenuous disk in hydrostatic equilibrium (i.e., with small scale height) and a smaller, scale height enhanced disk. We believe that these relatively small disks correspond to the transition region between the photosphere and the circumstellar environment and that they are probably perturbed by some photospheric mechanism. The study of this interface between photosphere and circumstellar disk for near-critical rotators is crucial to our understanding of the Be phenomenon and the mass and angular momentum loss of stars in general. This work shows that it is nowadays possible to directly study this transition region from simultaneous multitechnique observations.

Modeling the gas reservoir of circumstellar disks around young G-type stars

Interpretation of molecular line observations in tenuous circumstellar disks around young G-type stars in terms of a disk mass is difficult without a model that describes the chemical structure of these disks. This paper now discusses the chemistry in tenuous disks around young solar-type stars based on disk models that take into account the presence of a stellar chromosphere. The example of the disk around a 70 Myr old solar-type star shows that the dissociating radiation from the chromosphere is stronger than the interstellar ultraviolet radiation field up to a distance of ~400 AU from the star. Similar to other studies in this research field, it is found that, due to photodissociation, the CO-to-H_2 ratio is far from the canonical value of 10^-4 for molecular clouds. Moreover, the dust-to-gas mass ratio, as well as the dust grain size play an important role for the H_2 abundance in these disks.

Line emission from circumstellar disks around A stars

The nature of the tenuous disks around A stars has raised considerable controversy in the literature during the past decade. The debate whether or not the disk around β Pictoris contains gaseous molecular hydrogen is onlythe most recent example. Since CO is in general a poor tracer for the gas content of these low mass disks, we discuss here detailed emission line calculations for alternative tracers like C and C + , based on recent optically thin disk models by Kamp & van Zadelhoff (2001). The [C II] 157.7 μm line was searched toward Vega and β Pictoris - the most prominent A stars with disks - using ISO LWS data, and a tentative detection is reported toward the latter object. From a comparison with emission line observations as well as absorption line studies of both stars, the gas-to-dust ratio is constrained to lie between 0.5 and 9 for β Pictoris. For Vega the [C II] observations indicate an upper limit of 0.2 M O + for the disk gas mass. Predicted line intensities of C + and C are presented for a range of models and appear promising species to trace the gas content in the disks around A stars with future instrumental capabilities (SOFIA, Herschel, APEX and ALMA). Searches for CO emission should focus on the J = 3-2 line.

A rotating disk of gas and dust around a young counterpart to beta Pictoris.

beta Pictoris is the best known example of a main-sequence star encircled by a tenuous disk. Optical and infrared images of beta Pic suggest that the disk is composed of dust grains which have been interpreted as the debris generated by the disruption of the asteroid-sized remnants of planet-formation processes. The star itself is relatively old, with an age in excess of 100 Myr. Here we present high-resolution millimetre-wave images of continuum and molecular-line emission from dust and gas surrounding a much younger star, MWC480: the stellar properties of MWC480 are similar to those of beta Pic, but its age is just 6Myr. The morphology of the circumstellar material and a comparison with the predictions of kinematic modelling indicate the presence of a rotating disk, gravitationally bound to the star. Moreover, the mass of the disk is greater than the minimum required to form a planetary system like our own. We therefore suggest that the disk around the young star MWC480 could be a progenitor of debris disks of the type associated with older stars such as beta Pic, and so holds much promise for the study of both the origin of debris disks and the early stages of the formation of planetary systems.