Examining the Gas Rich Circumbinary Disk of HR 4049

The Gas-Rich Circumbinary Disk of HR 4049. II: A Detailed Study of the Near-Infrared Spectrum

Authors:

Malek et al

Abstract:

HR 4049 is a peculiar evolved binary which is surrounded by a circumbinary disk. Mid-infrared observations show that the disk is rich in molecular gas and radially extended. To study the properties of this disk, we re-analyzed a set of near-infrared observations at high spectral resolution obtained with Gemini-Phoenix. These data cover absorption lines originating from the first overtone of CO and from \hoh in the 2.3 μm region as well as more complex emission-absorption profiles from \hoh and the fundamental mode of CO near 4.6 μm. By using an excitation diagram and from modeling the spectrum, we find that most of the CO overtone and \hoh absorption originates from hot gas (Tex≈1000~K) with high column densities, consistent with the mid-infrared data. The strong emission in the wavelength range of the CO fundamental furthermore suggests that there is a significant quantity of gas in the inner cavity of the disk. In addition, there is a much colder component in the line of sight to the disk. A detailed analysis of the overtone line profiles reveals variations in the line widths which are consistent with a radially extended disk in Keplerian rotation with hotter gas closer to the central star. We estimate the mass of the primary to be ∼0.34~M⊙ and discuss the implications for its evolutionary status.