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Published January 20, 2017 | Published + Submitted
Journal Article Open

Alma measurements of circumstellar material in the GQ Lup system

Abstract

We present Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array observations of the GQ Lup system, a young Sun-like star with a substellar-mass companion in a wide-separation orbit. These observations of 870 μm continuum and CO J = 3–2 line emission with beam size ~0"3 (~45 au) resolve the disk of dust and gas surrounding the primary star, GQ Lup A, and provide deep limits on any circumplanetary disk surrounding the companion, GQ Lup b. The circumprimary dust disk is compact with an FWHM of 59 ± 12 au, while the gas has a larger extent with a characteristic radius of 46.5 ± 1.8 au. By forward-modeling the velocity field of the circumprimary disk based on the CO emission, we constrain the mass of GQ Lup A to be M_* = (1.03 ± 0.05) lowast (d/156 pc) M_⊙, where d is a known distance, and determine that we view the disk at an inclination angle of 60º5 ± 0º5 and a position angle of 346° ± 1°. The 3σ upper limit on the 870 μm flux density of any circumplanetary disk associated with GQ Lup b of <0.15 mJy implies an upper limit on the dust disk mass of <0.04 M_⊕ for standard assumptions about optically thin emission. We discuss proposed mechanisms for the formation of wide-separation substellar companions given the non-detection of circumplanetary disks around GQ Lup b and other similar systems.

Additional Information

© 2017. The American Astronomical Society. Received 2016 September 23; revised 2016 November 11; accepted 2016 November 17; published 2017 January 16. M.A.M. acknowledges support from a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (DGE1144152) and from NRAO Student Observing Support. This paper makes use of the following ALMA data: ADS/JAO.ALMA #2013.1.00374.S. ALMA is a partnership of ESO (representing its member states), NSF (USA), and NINS (Japan), together with NRC (Canada) and NSC and ASIAA (Taiwan) and KASI (Republic of Korea), in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. The Joint ALMA Observatory is operated by ESO, AUI/NRAO and NAOJ. The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc. This work has also made use of data from the European Space Agency (ESA) mission Gaia (http://www.cosmos.esa.int/gaia), processed by the Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium (DPAC, http://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/gaia/dpac/consortium). Funding for the DPAC has been provided by national institutions, in particular the institutions participating in the Gaia Multilateral Agreement.

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Published - MacGregor_2017_ApJ_835_17.pdf

Submitted - 1611.06229v1.pdf

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Additional details

Created:
August 19, 2023
Modified:
October 24, 2023