DR Tau: Temporal variability of the brightness distribution in the potential planet-forming region

Abstract

We investigate the variability of the brightness distribution and the changing density structure of the protoplanetary disk around DR Tau, a classical T Tauri star. DR Tau is known for its peculiar variations from the ultraviolet (UV) to the mid-infrared (MIR). Our goal is to constrain the temporal variation of the disk structure based on photometric and MIR interferometric data. We observed DR Tau with the MID-infrared Interferometric instrument (MIDI) at the Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) at three epochs separated by about nine years, two months, respectively. We fit the spectral energy distribution and the MIR visibilities with radiative transfer simulations. We are able to reproduce the spectral energy distribution as well as the MIR visibility for one of the three epochs (third epoch) with a basic disk model. We were able to reproduce the very different visibility curve obtained nine years earlier with a very similar baseline (first epoch), using the same disk model with a smaller scale height. The same density distribution also reproduces the observation made with a higher spatial resolution in the second epoch, i.e. only two months before the third epoch.

7 pages, 4 figures

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Cited by in corpus (11)

• Protoplanetary Disk Masses from Radiative Transfer Modeling: A Case Study in Taurus
• GIARPS High-resolution Observations of T Tauri stars (GHOsT). II. Connecting atomic and molecular winds in protoplanetary disks
• VLTI/MIDI atlas of disks around low- and intermediate-mass young stellar objects
• Interferometric study on the temporal variability of the brightness distributions of protoplanetary disks
• VLTI-MATISSE L- and N-band aperture-synthesis imaging of the unclassified B[e] star FS Canis Majoris
• Constraints on observing brightness asymmetries in protoplanetary disks at solar system scale
• Polarization reversal of scattered thermal dust emission in protoplanetary disks at (sub-)mm wavelengths
• Time-dependent Monte Carlo continuum radiative transfer
• The potential of combining MATISSE and ALMA observations: Constraining the structure of the innermost region in protoplanetary discs
• The potential of VLTI observations for the study of circumstellar disk variability
• The MATISSE view of the inner region of the RY Tau protoplanetary disk