6533b856fe1ef96bd12b1d17

RESEARCH PRODUCT

DR Tauri: Temporal variability of the brightness distribution in the potential planet-forming region

Sebastian WolfRobert BrunngräberTh. RatzkaF. Ober

subject

PhysicsBrightnessVery Large Telescope010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciencesEpoch (reference date)FOS: Physical sciencesAstronomy and AstrophysicsScale heightAstrophysics::Cosmology and Extragalactic AstrophysicsAstrophysicsProtoplanetary disk01 natural sciencesT Tauri starAstrophysics - Solar and Stellar AstrophysicsSpace and Planetary Science0103 physical sciencesRadiative transferAstrophysics::Solar and Stellar AstrophysicsSpectral energy distributionAstrophysics::Earth and Planetary Astrophysics010303 astronomy & astrophysicsSolar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)Astrophysics::Galaxy Astrophysics0105 earth and related environmental sciences

description

We investigate the variability of the brightness distribution and the changing density structure of the protoplanetary disk around DR Tau, a classical T Tauri star. DR Tau is known for its peculiar variations from the ultraviolet (UV) to the mid-infrared (MIR). Our goal is to constrain the temporal variation of the disk structure based on photometric and MIR interferometric data. We observed DR Tau with the MID-infrared Interferometric instrument (MIDI) at the Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) at three epochs separated by about nine years, two months, respectively. We fit the spectral energy distribution and the MIR visibilities with radiative transfer simulations. We are able to reproduce the spectral energy distribution as well as the MIR visibility for one of the three epochs (third epoch) with a basic disk model. We were able to reproduce the very different visibility curve obtained nine years earlier with a very similar baseline (first epoch), using the same disk model with a smaller scale height. The same density distribution also reproduces the observation made with a higher spatial resolution in the second epoch, i.e. only two months before the third epoch.

https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201526691