A Sub-millimeterwave ``Flare'' from GG Tau?

We have monitored the millimeter and submillimeter emission from the young stellar object GG Tau, a T Tauri binary system surrounded by a massive circumbinary disk. We find that between 1992 and 1994, the flux has increased significantly at 800, 1100, and 1300 microns, resulting in a steepening of the observed spectral energy distribution at those wavelengths. Such an increase appears consistent with a modest increase in disk luminosity (a factor of two). The increase in the effective disk temperature might arise from a slight change in the disk heating processes. Alternatively, the flux increase may reflect a sudden change in the underlying dust optical properties.Comment: 15 pages, AASTex v.4.0 format, four postscript figures, four tables, to appear in The Astrophysical Journa

Ubiquitous H-alpha polarized line profiles: absorptive spectropolarimetric effects and temporal variability in Post-AGB, Herbig Ae/Be and other stellar types

We show here that the absorptive H-alpha polarized line profile previously seen in many Herbig Ae/Be (HAeBe) stars is a nearly ubiquitous feature of other types of embedded or obscured stars. This characteristic 1% linear polarization variation across the absorptive part of the H-alpha line is seen in Post-AGB stars as well as RV-Tau, Delta-Scuti, and other types. Each of these stars shows evidence of obscuration by intervening circumstellar hydrogen gas and the polarization effect is in the absorptive component, consistent with an optical pumping model. We present ESPaDOnS spectropolarimetric observations of 9 post-AGB and RV-Tau types in addition to many multi-epoch HiVIS observations of these targets. We find significant polarization changes across the H-alpha line in 8/9 stars with polarization amplitudes of 0.5% to over 3% (5/6 Post-AGB and 3/3 RV-Tau). In all but one of these, the polarization change is dominated by the absorptive component of the line profile. There is no evidence that subclasses of obscured stars showing stellar pulsations (RV-Tau for Post-AGB stars and Delta-Scuti for Herbig Ae/Be stars) show significant spectropolarimetric differences from the main class. Significant temporal variability is evident from both HiVIS and ESPaDOnS data for several stars presented here: 89 Her, AC Her, SS Lep, MWC 120, AB Aurigae and HD144668. The morphologies and temporal variability are comparable to existing large samples of Herbig Ae/Be and Be type stars. Since Post-AGB stars have circumstellar gas that is very different from Be stars, we discuss these observations in the context of their differing environments.Comment: Accepted in ApJ, EmulateApJ - 11 pages, 11 figure