TY - JOUR
T1 - Near-infrared coronagraphic imaging of the circumstellar disk around TW hydrae
AU - Trilling, D. E.
AU - Koerner, D. W.
AU - Barnes, J. W.
AU - Ftaclas, C.
AU - Brown, R. H.
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank the IRTF day crew and telescope operators for their invaluable assistance. We thank Ray Jayawardhana for help with the planning, execution, and interpretation of these observations. We thank Zahed Wahhaj, Hubert Klahr, Eugene Chiang, and John Krist for useful conversations and two anonymous referees for their helpful comments. This work was supported in part by grants to Doug Lin and Peter Bodenheimer and NASA grant AST 96-18803 and NSF grant NAG5-6310 to C. F.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2001. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.
PY - 2001/5/10
Y1 - 2001/5/10
N2 - We present ground-based near-infrared (H-band) imaging of the circumstellar disk around the nearby classical T Tauri star TW Hydrae. The scattered-light image shows a face-on disk with a radius of 4″ (corresponding to 225 AU) and a morphology that agrees with recent images from the Hubble Space Telescope and the Very Large Array. The best-fit power-law for the disk's radial surface brightness profile obeys the law r-3.3-0.3. We use our image and published continuum flux densities to derive properties of the disk with a simple model of emission from a flat disk. The best-fit values for disk mass and inner radius are 0.03 M⊙ and 0.3 AU, respectively; the , best-fit values for the temperature, density, and grain opacity power-law exponents (q, p, and β) are 0.7, 1.3, and 0.9, respectively. These properties are similar to those of disks around classical T Tauri stars located in more distant molecular clouds. Because of TW Hydrae's nearby location and pole-on orientation, it is a uniquely favorable object for future studies of radial disk structure at the classical T Tauri stage.
AB - We present ground-based near-infrared (H-band) imaging of the circumstellar disk around the nearby classical T Tauri star TW Hydrae. The scattered-light image shows a face-on disk with a radius of 4″ (corresponding to 225 AU) and a morphology that agrees with recent images from the Hubble Space Telescope and the Very Large Array. The best-fit power-law for the disk's radial surface brightness profile obeys the law r-3.3-0.3. We use our image and published continuum flux densities to derive properties of the disk with a simple model of emission from a flat disk. The best-fit values for disk mass and inner radius are 0.03 M⊙ and 0.3 AU, respectively; the , best-fit values for the temperature, density, and grain opacity power-law exponents (q, p, and β) are 0.7, 1.3, and 0.9, respectively. These properties are similar to those of disks around classical T Tauri stars located in more distant molecular clouds. Because of TW Hydrae's nearby location and pole-on orientation, it is a uniquely favorable object for future studies of radial disk structure at the classical T Tauri stage.
KW - Accretion
KW - Accretion disks
KW - Circumstellar matter
KW - Open clusters and associations: individual (TW Hydrae)
KW - Planetary systems: protoplanetary disks
KW - Stars: individual (TW Hydrae)
KW - Stars: pre-main-sequence
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U2 - 10.1086/320332
DO - 10.1086/320332
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84961316510
SN - 2041-8205
VL - 552
SP - L151-L154
JO - Astrophysical Journal Letters
JF - Astrophysical Journal Letters
IS - 2
ER -