Paper: astro-ph/0604260
Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 08:12:19 GMT (87kb)

Title: Circumstellar material in the Vega inner system revealed by CHARA/FLUOR

Authors: O. Absil, E. di Folco, A. Merand, J.-C. Augereau, V. Coude du Foresto,
J. P. Aufdenberg, P. Kervella, S. T. Ridgway, D. H. Berger, T. A. ten
Brummelaar, J. Sturmann, L. Sturmann, N. H. Turner, and H. A. McAlister

Comments: A&A, accepted -- Press release available at

http://www2.cnrs.fr/presse/communique/848.htm

DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361:20054522
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Only a handful of debris disks have been imaged up to now. Due to the need
for high dynamic range and high angular resolution, very little is known about
the inner planetary region, where small amounts of warm dust are expected to be
found. We investigate the close neighbourhood of Vega with the help of infrared
stellar interferometry and estimate the integrated K-band flux originating from
the central 8 AU of the debris disk. We performed precise visibility
measurements at both short (~30 m) and long (~150 m) baselines with the FLUOR
beam-combiner installed at the CHARA Array (Mt Wilson, California) in order to
separately resolve the emissions from the extended debris disk (short
baselines) and from the stellar photosphere (long baselines). After revising
Vega's K-band angular diameter (3.202+/-0.005 mas), we show that a significant
deficit in squared visibility (1.88+/-0.34%) is detected at short baselines
with respect to the best-fit uniform disk stellar model. This deficit can be
either attributed to the presence of a low-mass stellar companion around Vega,
or as the signature of the thermal and scattered emissions from the debris
disk. We show that the presence of a close companion is highly unlikely, as
well as other possible perturbations (stellar morphology, calibration), and
deduce that we have most probably detected the presence of dust in the close
neighbourhood of Vega. The resulting flux ratio between the stellar photosphere
and the debris disk amounts to 1.29+/-0.19% within the FLUOR field-of-view
(~7.8 AU). Finally, we complement our K-band study with archival photometric
and interferometric data in order to evaluate the main physical properties of
the inner dust disk.

The inferred properties suggest that the Vega system could
be currently undergoing major dynamical perturbations.

\\ ( http://arXiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0604260 , 87kb)