Variable warm dust around the Herbig Ae star HD~169142: Birth of a ring?

Abstract

The Herbig Ae star HD 169142 is known to have a gaseous disk with a large inner hole, and also a photometrically variable inner dust component in the sub-au region. Following up our previous analysis, we further studied the temporal evolution of inner dust around HD 169142, which may provide information on the evolution from late-stage protoplanetary disks to debris disks. We used near-infrared interferometric observations obtained with VLTI/PIONIER to constrain the dust distribution at three epochs spanning six years. We also studied the photometric variability of HD 169142 using our optical-infrared observations and archival data. Our results indicate that a dust ring at ~0.3 au formed at some time between 2013 and 2018, and then faded (but did not completely disappear) by 2019. The short-term variability resembles that observed in extreme debris disks, and is likely related to short-lived dust of secondary origin, though variable shadowing from the inner ring could be an alternative interpretation. If confirmed, this is the first direct detection of secondary dust production inside a protoplanetary disk.

7 pages, 3 figures. Published in ApJ Letters

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Cited by in corpus (7)

• Gas temperature structure across transition disk cavities
• The GRAVITY Young Stellar Object Survey. VI. Mapping the variable inner disk of HD 163296 at sub-au scales
• The Discovery of lambda Bootis Stars -- The Southern Survey II
• Spatially resolving polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in Herbig Ae disks with VISIR-NEAR at the VLT
• LBT search for companions and sub-structures in the (pre)transitional disk of AB Aurigae
• The potential of VLTI observations for the study of circumstellar disk variability
• Probing inner and outer disk misalignments in transition disks