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Published April 1, 2012 | Published
Journal Article Open

The Invisible Monster Has Two Faces: Observations of Є Aurigae with the Herschel Space Observatory

Abstract

We present Herschel Space Observatory photometric observations of the unique, long-period eclipsing binary star Є Aurigae. Its extended spectral energy distribution is consistent with our previously published cool (550 K) dust disk model. We also present an archival infrared spectral energy distribution of the side of the disk facing the bright F-type star in the binary, which is consistent with a warmer (1150 K) disk model. The lack of strong molecular emission features in the Herschel bands suggests that the disk has a low gas-to-dust ratio. The spectral energy distribution and Herschel images imply that the 250 GHz radio detection reported by Altenhoff et al. is likely contaminated by infrared-bright, extended background emission associated with a nearby nebular region and should be considered an upper limit to the true flux density of Є Aur.

Additional Information

© 2012 American Astronomical Society. Received 2011 November 2; accepted 2012 February 29; published 2012 March 15. This work is based on observations made with Herschel, an ESA Cornerstone Mission with significant participation by NASA, and with the Spitzer Space Telescope, which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with NASA. Support for this work was provided by NASA through an award issued by JPL/Caltech. We used data products from the Two Micron All Sky Survey, a joint project of the University of Massachusetts and the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center/Caltech, funded by NASA and NSF, and utilized the SIMBAD database, operated at CDS, Strasbourg, France, and NASA's Astrophysics Data System. We thank Sean Carey for a helpful discussion about MSX photometry. Facilities: AAVSO, Herschel (PACS, SPIRE), IRAS, MSX, Spitzer (IRAC, IRS, MIPS)

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