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Disk Evolution Study Through Imaging of Nearby Young Stars (DESTINYS): Scattered light detection of a possible disk wind in RY Tau

Valegård, PG; Ginski, C; Dominik, C; Bae, J; Benisty, M; Birnstiel, T; Facchini, S; ... Williams, J; + view all (2022) Disk Evolution Study Through Imaging of Nearby Young Stars (DESTINYS): Scattered light detection of a possible disk wind in RY Tau. Astronomy and Astrophysics , 668 , Article A25. 10.1051/0004-6361/202244001. Green open access

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Abstract

CONTEXT: Disk winds are an important mechanism for accretion and disk evolution around young stars. The accreting intermediatemass T-Tauri star RY Tau has an active jet and a previously known disk wind. Archival optical and new near-infrared observations of the RY Tau system show two horn-like components stretching out as a cone from RY Tau. Scattered light from the disk around RY Tau is visible in the near-infrared, but not seen at optical wavelengths. In the near-infrared, dark wedges separate the horns from the disk, indicating that we may see the scattered light from a disk wind. AIMS: We aim to test the hypothesis that a dusty disk wind could be responsible for the optical effect in which the disk around RY Tau is hidden in the I band, but visible in the H band. This could be the first detection of a dusty disk wind in scattered light. We also want to constrain the grain size and dust mass in the wind and the wind-launching region. METHODS: We used archived Atacama-Large-Millimetre-Array (ALMA) and Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet REsearch (SPHERE) I band observations combined with newly acquired SPHERE H band observations and available literature to build a simple geometric model of the RY Tau disk and disk wind.We used Monte Carlo radiative transfer modelling MCMax3D to create comparable synthetic observations that test the effect of a dusty wind on the optical effect in the observations. We constrained the grain size and dust mass needed in the disk wind to reproduce the effect from the observations. RESULTS: A model geometrically reminiscent of a dusty disk wind with small micron to sub-micron-sized grains elevated above the disk can reproduce the optical effect seen in the observations. The mass in the obscuring component of the wind has been constrained to 1 × 10-9M⊙≤ M ≤ 5 × 10-8M⊙, which corresponds to a mass-loss rate in the wind of about 1 × 10.8 M yr.1. CONCLUSIONS: A simple model of a disk wind with micron to sub-micron-sized grains elevated above the disk is able to prevent stellar radiation to scatter in the disk at optical wavelengths while allowing photons to reach the disk in the near-infrared. Estimates of massloss rate correspond to previously presented theoretical models and points towards the idea that a magneto-hydrodynamic-type wind is the more likely scenario.

Type: Article
Title: Disk Evolution Study Through Imaging of Nearby Young Stars (DESTINYS): Scattered light detection of a possible disk wind in RY Tau
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/202244001
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202244001
Language: English
Additional information: Open Access article, published by EDP Sciences, under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Keywords: Protoplanetary disks, radiative transfer, stars: individual: RY Tau, stars: winds, outflows
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences > Dept of Space and Climate Physics
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10163573
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