Holland, W. S., Greaves, J. S, Dent, W. R. F., Wyatt, M. C., Zuckerman, B., Webb, R. A., McCarthy, C., Coulson, I. M., Robson, E. I. and Gear, Walter Kieran 2003. Submillimeter observations of an asymmetric dust disk around Fomalhaut. Astrophysical Journal 582 (2) , pp. 1141-1146. 10.1086/344819 |
Abstract
New submillimeter images of the cold dust emission around the nearby main-sequence star Fomalhaut are presented. Observations at a wavelength of 450 ?m, where the telescope beam size is equivalent to a resolution of 50 AU, reveal that Fomalhaut is encircled by a significantly nonaxisymmetric inclined ring. Smooth axisymmetric models of the ring images suggest the existence of a least one "clump" with an estimated flux of about 5% of the total from the disk, thus implying a clump mass of 0.075 lunar masses. At the resolution of the data, this clump could instead be a ring arc. The most plausible explanation is that this feature is produced by dust trapped in a resonance with a large planet. The observed structures around Fomalhaut and other Vega-excess stars qualitatively resemble features seen in numerical simulations with a gas giant perturber.
Item Type: | Article |
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Date Type: | Publication |
Status: | Published |
Schools: | Physics and Astronomy |
Subjects: | Q Science > QB Astronomy |
Uncontrolled Keywords: | circumstellar matter; planetary systems; stars: individual (Fomalhaut) |
ISSN: | 0004-6256 |
Last Modified: | 04 Jun 2017 01:40 |
URI: | http://orca.cf.ac.uk/id/eprint/1548 |
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