Spatially resolved spectroscopy of sub-AU sized regions of T Tauri and Herbig Ae/Be disks
Abstract
We present spatially resolved near-IR spectroscopic observations of 15 young stars. Using a grism spectrometer behind the Keck interferometer, we obtained an angular resolution of a few milliarcseconds and a spectral resolution of 230, enabling probes of both gas and dust in the inner disks surrounding the target stars. We find that the angular size of the near-IR emission typically increases with wavelength, indicating hot, presumably gaseous material within the dust sublimation radius. Our data also clearly indicate Brγ emission arising from hot hydrogen gas, and suggest the presence of water vapor and carbon monoxide gas in the inner disks of several objects. This gaseous emission is more compact than the dust continuum emission in all cases. We construct simple physical models of the inner disk and fit them to our data to constrain the spatial distribution and temperature of dust and gas emission components.
Additional Information
© 2009 The American Astronomical Society. Received 2008 June 22; accepted 2008 September 24; published 2009 February 19. Data presented herein were obtained at the W. M. Keck Observatory, in part from telescope time allocated to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration through the agency's scientific partnership with Caltech and the University of California. The Observatory was made possible by the generous financial support of the W. M. Keck Foundation. The authors recognize and acknowledge the cultural role and reverence that the summit of Mauna Kea has always had within the indigenous Hawaiian community. We are most fortunate to have the opportunity to conduct observations from this mountain. This work has used software from the Michelson Science Center at Caltech. The authors thank the entire KI team for making these observations possible. We also thank the referee, Geoff Blake, for his thoughtful and detailed referee report, which greatly improved the manuscript.Attached Files
Published - Eisner2009p16010.10880004-637X6921309.pdf
Files
| Name | Size | Download all |
|---|---|---|
|
md5:a6b257a203af9bf2a6356deb439f1ce6
|
719.9 kB | Preview Download |
Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 14863
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20090807-083448310
- W. M. Keck Foundation
- Created
-
2009-08-10Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
-
2021-11-08Created from EPrint's last_modified field
- Caltech groups
- Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC)