SiS in the circumstellar envelope of IRC +10126: maser and quasi-thermal emission

Abstract

We present new Effelsberg-100 m, ATCA, and VLA observations of rotational SiS transitions in the circumstellar envelope (CSE) of IRC +10216. Thanks to the high angular resolution achieved by the ATCA observations, we unambiguously confirm that the molecule's J=1-0 transition exhibits maser action in this CSE, as first suggested more than thirty years ago. The maser emission's radial velocity peaking at a local standard of rest velocity of -39.862$\pm$0.065 km/s indicates that it arises from an almost fully accelerated shell. Monitoring observations show time variability of the SiS (1-0) maser. The two lowest-$J$ SiS quasi-thermal emission lines trace a much more extended emitting region than previous high-J SiS observations. Their distributions show that the SiS quasi-thermal emission consists of two components: one is very compact (radius<1.5", corresponding to <3$\times 10^{15}$ cm), and the other extends out to a radius >11". An incomplete shell-like structure is found in the north-east, which is indicative of existing SiS shells. Clumpy structures are also revealed in this CSE. The gain of the SiS (1-0) maser (optical depths of about -5 at the blue-shifted side and, assuming inversion throughout the entire line's velocity range, about -2 at the red-shifted side) suggests that it is unsaturated. The SiS (1-0) maser can be explained in terms of ro-vibrational excitation caused by infrared pumping, and we propose that infrared continuum emission is the main pumping source.

Accepted for publication in ApJ. A high-resolution version can be found at https://gongyan2444.github.io/pdf/cw-leo-sis.pdf 3D movies of SiS cubes can be found at https://gongyan2444.github.io/movie/sis10-3d.avi and https://gongyan2444.github.io/movie/sis21-3d.avi

References in corpus (10)

• Detection of C5N- and vibrationally excited C6H in IRC +10216
• ALMA data suggest the presence of a spiral structure in the inner wind of CW Leo
• Molecular shells in IRC+10216: tracing the mass loss history
• A spectral line survey in the 2 mm and 1.3 mm windows toward the carbon rich envelope of IRC +10216
• Discovery of Time Variation of the Intensity of Molecular Lines in IRC+10216 in The Submillimeter and Far Infrared Domains
• Si-bearing molecules towards IRC+10216: ALMA unveils the molecular envelope of CWLeo
• A 1.3 cm line survey toward IRC +10216
• Molecular shells in IRC+10216: Evidence for non-isotropic and episodic mass loss enhancement
• The complex dust formation zone of the AGB star IRC+10216 probed with CARMA 0.25 arcsec angular resolution molecular observations
• Radio continuum monitoring of the extreme carbon star IRC+10216

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Monitor variability of millimeter lines in IRC +10216
• Vibrationally excited HCN transitions in circumstellar envelopes of carbon-rich AGB stars
• New submillimetre HCN lasers in carbon-rich evolved stars
• The Si+SO${}_2$ collision and an extended network of neutral-neutral reactions between silicon and sulphur bearing species