V409 Tau Mimics AA Tau

V409 Tau As Another AA Tau: Photometric Observations of Stellar Occultations by the Circumstellar Disk

Authors:

Rodriguez et al

Abstract:

AA Tau is a well studied young stellar object that presents many of the photometric characteristics of a Classical T Tauri star (CTTS), including short-timescale stochastic variability attributed to spots and/or accretion as well as long duration dimming events attributed to occultations by vertical features (e.g., warps) in its circumstellar disk. We present new photometric observations of AA Tau from the Kilodegree Extremely Little Telescope North (KELT-North) which reveal a deep, extended dimming event in 2011, which we show supports the interpretation by Bouvier et al. (2013) of an occultation by a high-density feature in the circumstellar disk located greater than 8 AU from the star. We also present KELT-North observations of V409 Tau, a relatively unstudied young stellar object also in Taurus-Auriga, showing short timescale erratic variability, along with two separate long and deep dimming events, one from January 2009 through late October 2010, and the other from March 2012 until at least September 2013. We interpret both dimming events to have lasted more than 600 days, each with a depth of ~1.4 mag. From a spectral energy distribution analysis, we propose that V409 Tau is most likely surrounded by a circumstellar disk viewed nearly edge-on, and using Keplerian timescale arguments we interpret the deep dimmings of V409 Tau as occultations from one or more features within this disk greater than 10 AU from the star. In both AA Tau and V409 Tau, the usual CTTS short-timescale variations associated with accretion processes close to the stars continue during the occultations, further supporting the distant occulting material interpretation. Like AA Tau, V409 Tau serves as a laboratory for studying the detailed structure of the protoplanetary environments of T Tauri disks, specifically disk structures that may be signposts of planet formation at many AU out in the disk.

Is AA Tauri's Protoplanetary Disk Unstable?

Dimming and CO absorption toward the AA Tau protoplanetary disk: An infalling flow caused by disk instability?

Authors:

Zhang et al

Abstract:

AA Tau, a classical T Tauri star in the Taurus cloud, has been the subject of intensive photometric monitoring for more than two decades due to its quasi-cyclic variation in optical brightness. Beginning in 2011, AA Tau showed another peculiar variation -- its median optical though near-IR flux dimmed significantly, a drop consistent with a 4-mag increase in visual extinction. It has stayed in the faint state since.Here we present 4.7um CO rovibrational spectra of AA Tau over eight epochs, covering an eleven-year time span, that reveal enhanced 12CO and 13CO absorption features in the Jlow⩽13 transitions after the dimming. These newly appeared absorptions require molecular gas along the line of sight with T~500 K and a column density of log (N12CO)~18.5 cm^{-2}, with line centers that show a constant 6 km s−1 redshift. The properties of the molecular gas confirm an origin in the circumstellar material. We suggest that the dimming and absorption are caused by gas and dust lifted to large heights by a magnetic buoyancy instability. This material is now propagating inward, and on reaching the star within a few years will be observed as an accretion outburst.