Subscribe to the gold package and get unlimited access to Shamra Academy
Register a new userALMA sub-mm maser and dust distribution of VY Canis Majoris
231
0
0.0
(
0
)
Ask ChatGPT about the research
No Arabic abstract
Cool, evolved stars have copious, enriched winds. The structure of these winds and the way they are accelerated is not well known. We need to improve our understanding by studying the dynamics from the pulsating stellar surface to about 10 stellar radii, where radiation pressure on dust is fully effective. Some red supergiants have highly asymmetric nebulae, implicating additional forces. We retrieved ALMA Science Verification data providing images of sub-mm line and continuum emission from VY CMa. This enables us to locate water masers with milli-arcsec precision and resolve the dusty continuum. The 658-, 321- and 325-GHz masers lie in irregular, thick shells at increasing distances from the centre of expansion. For the first time this is confirmed as the stellar position, coinciding with a compact peak offset to the NW of the brightest continuum emission. The maser shells (and dust formation zone) overlap but avoid each other on tens-au scales. Their distribution is broadly consistent with excitation models but the conditions and kinematics appear to be complicated by wind collisions, clumping and asymmetries.
rate research
Read More
Titanium dioxide, TiO$_2$, is a refractory species that could play a crucial role in the dust-condensation sequence around oxygen-rich evolved stars. To date, gas phase TiO$_2$ has been detected only in the complex environment of the red supergiant VY CMa. We aim to constrain the distribution and excitation of TiO$_2$ around VY CMa in order to clarify its role in dust formation. We analyse spectra and channel maps for TiO$_2$ extracted from ALMA science verification data. We detect 15 transitions of TiO$_2$, and spatially resolve the emission for the first time. The maps demonstrate a highly clumpy, anisotropic outflow in which the TiO$_2$ emission likely traces gas exposed to the stellar radiation field. A roughly east-west oriented, accelerating bipolar-like structure is found, of which the blue component runs into and breaks up around a solid continuum component. A distinct tail to the south-west is seen for some transitions, consistent with features seen in the optical and near-infrared. We find that a significant fraction of TiO$_2$ remains in the gas phase outside the dust-formation zone and suggest that this species might play only a minor role in the dust-condensation process around extreme oxygen-rich evolved stars like VY CMa.
The formation of inorganic dust in circumstellar environments of evolved stars is poorly understood. Spectra of molecules thought to be most important for the nucleation, i.e. AlO, TiO, and TiO2, have been recently detected in the red supergiant VY CMa. These molecules are effectively formed in VY CMa and the observations suggest that non-equilibrium chemistry must be involved in their formation and nucleation into dust. In addition to exploring the recent observations of VY CMa, we briefly discuss the possibility of detecting these molecules in the dust-poor circumstellar environment of Betelgeuse.
The processes leading to dust formation and the subsequent role it plays in driving mass loss in cool evolved stars is an area of intense study. Here we present high resolution ALMA Science Verification data of the continuum emission around the highly evolved oxygen-rich red supergiant VY CMa. These data enable us to study the dust in its inner circumstellar environment at a spatial resolution of 129 mas at 321 GHz and 59 mas at 658 GHz, thus allowing us to trace dust on spatial scales down to 11 R$_{star}$ (71 AU). Two prominent dust components are detected and resolved. The brightest dust component, C, is located 334 mas (61 R$_{star}$) South East of the star and has a dust mass of at least $2.5times 10^{-4}$ M$_{odot}$. It has a dust emissivity spectral index of $beta =-0.1$ at its peak, implying that it is optically thick at these frequencies with a cool core of $T_{d}lesssim 100$ K. Interestingly, not a single molecule in the ALMA data has emission close to the peak of this massive dust clump. The other main dust component, VY, is located at the position of the star and contains a total dust mass of $4.0 times 10^{-5} $M$_{odot}$. It also contains a weaker dust feature extending over $60$ R$_{star}$ to the North with the total component having a typical dust emissivity spectral index of $beta =0.7$. We find that at least $17%$ of the dust mass around VY CMa is located in clumps ejected within a more quiescent roughly spherical stellar wind, with a quiescent dust mass loss rate of $5 times 10^{-6}$ M$_{odot} $yr$^{-1}$. The anisotropic morphology of the dust indicates a continuous, directed mass loss over a few decades, suggesting that this mass loss cannot be driven by large convection cells alone.
We report the first detection of pure rotational transitions of TiO and TiO_2 at (sub-)millimeter wavelengths towards the red supergiant VY CMa. A rotational temperature, T_rot, of about 250 K was derived for TiO_2. Although T_rot was not well constrained for TiO, it is likely somewhat higher than that of TiO_2. The detection of the Ti oxides confirms that they are formed in the circumstellar envelopes of cool oxygen-rich stars and may be the seeds of inorganic-dust formation, but alternative explanations for our observation of TiO and TiO_2 in the cooler regions of the envelope cannot be ruled out at this time. The observations suggest that a significant fraction of the oxides is not converted to dust, but instead remains in the gas phase throughout the outflow.
We report the first identification of the optical bands of the B-X system of AlO in the red supergiant VY CMa. In addition to TiO, VO, ScO, and YO, which were recognized in the optical spectrum of the star long time ago, AlO is another refractory molecule which displays strong emission bands in this peculiar star. Simulating the bands of AlO, we derive a rotational temperature of the circumstellar gas of Trot=700K. By resolving individual rotational components of the bands, we derive the kinematical characteristics of the gas, finding that the emission is centered at the stellar radial velocity and its intrinsic width is 13.5 km/s (full width at half maximum). It is the narrowest emission among all (thermal) features observed in VY CMa so far. The temperature and line widths suggest that the emission arises in gas located within ~20 stellar radii, where the outflow is still being accelerated. This result contradicts equilibrium-chemistry models which predict substantial AlO abundances only to within a few stellar radii. We argue that non-equilibrium models involving propagation of shocks are needed to explain the observations.
Log in to be able to interact and post comments
comments
Fetching comments
Sign in to be able to follow your search criteria
