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A dusty torus around the luminous young star LkHα101

Nature volume 409, pages 1012–1014 (2001)Cite this article

Abstract

A star forms when a cloud of dust and gas collapses. It is generally believed that this collapse first produces a flattened rotating disk1,2, through which matter is fed onto the embryonic star at the centre of the disk. When the temperature and density at the centre of the star pass a critical threshold, thermonuclear fusion begins. The remaining disk, which can still contain up to 0.3 times the mass of the star3,4,5, is then sculpted and eventually dissipated by the radiation and wind from the newborn star. But this picture of the structure and evolution of the disk remains speculative because of the lack of morphological data of sufficient resolution and uncertainties regarding the underlying physical processes. Here we present images of a young star, LkHα101, in which the structure of the inner accretion disk is resolved. We find that the disk is almost face-on, with a central gap (or cavity) and a hot inner edge. The cavity is bigger than previous theoretical predictions6, and we infer that the position of the inner edge is probably determined by sublimation of dust grains by direct stellar radiation, rather than by disk-reprocessing or viscous-heating processes as usually assumed29.

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Figure 1: Maps of the LkHα101 system.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank D. Sivia for the maximum-entropy mapping program VLBMEM. Data were obtained at the W.M. Keck Observatory, made possible by the generous support of the W.M. Keck Foundation, operated as a scientific partnership among the California Institute of Technology, the University of California and NASA. This work was supported through grants from the National Science Foundation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Astronomy Department, School of Physics, University of Sydney, Sydney, 2006, NSW, Australia

    Peter G. Tuthill

  2. Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, 02138, Massachusetts, USA

    John D. Monnier

  3. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Infrared Astrophysics, Code 685, Greenbelt, 20771, Maryland, USA

    William C. Danchi

Authors
  1. Peter G. Tuthill
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  2. John D. Monnier
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  3. William C. Danchi
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Correspondence to Peter G. Tuthill.

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Tuthill, P., Monnier, J. & Danchi, W. A dusty torus around the luminous young star LkHα101. Nature 409, 1012–1014 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1038/35059014

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