Spatially Resolved Spectroscopy of Sub-AU-Sized Regions of T Tauri and Herbig Ae/Be Disks

We present spatially resolved near-IR spectroscopic observations of 15 young stars. Using a grism spectrometer behind the Keck interferometer, we obtained an angular resolution of a few milliarcseconds and a spectral resolution of 230, enabling probes of both gas and dust in the inner disks surround...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Astrophysical journal 2009-02, Vol.692 (1), p.309-323
Main Authors: Eisner, J. A, Graham, J. R, Akeson, R. L, Najita, J
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Astronomy
Earth, ocean, space
Exact sciences and technology
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Summary:We present spatially resolved near-IR spectroscopic observations of 15 young stars. Using a grism spectrometer behind the Keck interferometer, we obtained an angular resolution of a few milliarcseconds and a spectral resolution of 230, enabling probes of both gas and dust in the inner disks surrounding the target stars. We find that the angular size of the near-IR emission typically increases with wavelength, indicating hot, presumably gaseous material within the dust sublimation radius. Our data also clearly indicate Br gamma emission arising from hot hydrogen gas, and suggest the presence of water vapor and carbon monoxide gas in the inner disks of several objects. This gaseous emission is more compact than the dust continuum emission in all cases. We construct simple physical models of the inner disk and fit them to our data to constrain the spatial distribution and temperature of dust and gas emission components.
ISSN:0004-637X
1538-4357
DOI:10.1088/0004-637X/692/1/309