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Published March 1, 2018 | Published
Journal Article Open

A Multi-instrument and Multi-wavelength High Angular Resolution Study of MWC 614: Quantum Heated Particles Inside the Disk Cavity

Abstract

High angular resolution observations of young stellar objects are required to study the inner astronomical units of protoplanetary disks in which the majority of planets form. As they evolve, gaps open up in the inner disk regions and the disks are fully dispersed within ~10 Myr. MWC 614 is a pretransitional object with a ~10 au radius gap. We present a set of high angular resolution observations of this object including SPHERE/ZIMPOL polarimetric and coronagraphic images in the visible, Keck/NIRC2 near-infrared (NIR) aperture masking observations, and Very Large Telescope Interferometer (AMBER, MIDI, and PIONIER) and Center for High Angular Resolution Astronomy (CLASSIC and CLIMB) long-baseline interferometry at infrared wavelengths. We find that all the observations are compatible with an inclined disk (i ~ 55° at a position angle of ~20°–30°). The mid-infrared data set confirms that the disk inner rim is at 12.3 ± 0.4 au from the central star. We determined an upper mass limit of 0.34 M_⊙ for a companion inside the cavity. Within the cavity, the NIR emission, usually associated with the dust sublimation region, is unusually extended (~10 au, 30 times larger than the theoretical sublimation radius) and indicates a high dust temperature (T ~ 1800 K). As a possible result of companion-induced dust segregation, quantum heated dust grains could explain the extended NIR emission with this high temperature. Our observations confirm the peculiar state of this object where the inner disk has already been accreted onto the star, exposing small particles inside the cavity to direct stellar radiation.

Additional Information

© 2018 American Astronomical Society. Received 2017 September 29. Accepted 2018 January 31. Published 2018 March 6. The authors acknowledge support from a Marie Sklodowska-Curie CIG grant (Grant No. 618910), Philip Leverhulme Prize (PLP-2013-110), STFC Rutherford Fellowship (ST/J004030/1), and ERC Starting Grant (Grant Agreement No. 639889). A.A. and J.D.M. acknowledge support from NSF AAG 1311698. The authors wish to recognize and acknowledge the very significant cultural role and reverence that the summit of MaunaKea has always had within the indigenous Hawaiian community. We are most fortunate to have the opportunity to conduct observations from this mountain. This work was supported by a NASA Keck PI Data Award, administered by the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute (PID 69/2013B_N104N2). Data presented herein were obtained at the W. M. Keck Observatory from telescope time allocated to NASA through the agency's scientific partnership with the California Institute of Technology and the University of California. The Observatory was made possible by the generous financial support of the W. M. Keck Foundation. This work is based in part upon observations obtained with the Georgia State University (GSU) Center for High Angular Resolution Astronomy Array at Mount Wilson Observatory. The CHARA Array is supported by the NSF under Grant No. AST-1211929. Institutional support has been provided from the GSU College of Arts and Sciences and the GSU Office of the Vice President for Research and Economic Development. This research has made use of the SIMBAD database and the VizieR catalog access tool, operated at CDS, Strasbourg, France.

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August 21, 2023
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