Probing the origin of UX Ori-type variability in the YSO binary CO Ori with VLTI/GRAVITY

The primary star in the young stellar object (YSO) binary CO Ori displays UX Ori-type variability: irregular, high amplitude optical and near-infrared photometric fluctuations where flux minima coincide with polarization maxima. This is attributed to changes in local opacity. In CO Ori A, these variations exhibit a 12.4 yr cycle. Here, we investigate the physical origin of the fluctuating opacity and its periodicity using interferometric observations of CO Ori obtained using VLTI/GRAVITY. Continuum K-band circum-primary and circum-secondary emission are marginally spatially resolved for the first time while Br$\gamma$ emission is detected in the spectrum of the secondary. We estimate a spectral type range for CO Ori B of K2-K5 assuming visual extinction, $A_{\rm{V}}=2$ and a distance of 430 pc. From geometric modelling of the continuum visibilities, the circum-primary emission is consistent with a central point source plus a Gaussian component with a full-width-half-maximum of 2.31$\pm$0.04 milliarcseconds (mas), inclined at 30.2$\pm$2.2$^{\circ}$ and with a major axis position angle of 40$\pm$6$^{\circ}$. This inclination is lower than that reported for the discs of other UX Ori-type stars, providing a first indication that the UX Ori phenomena may arise through fluctuations in circumstellar material exterior to a disc, e.g. in a dusty outflow. An additional wide, symmetric Gaussian component is required to fit the visibilities of CO Ori B, signifying a contribution from scattered light. Finally, closure phases of CO Ori A were used to investigate whether the 12.4 yr periodicity is associated with an undetected third component, as has been previously suggested. We rule out any additional companions contributing more than 3.6% to the K-band flux within ~7.3-20 mas of CO Ori A.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA

Gas dynamics in the inner few AU around the Herbig B[e] star MWC297: Indications of a disk wind from kinematic modeling and velocity-resolved interferometric imaging

We present near-infrared AMBER (R = 12, 000) and CRIRES (R = 100, 000) observations of the Herbig B[e] star MWC297 in the hydrogen Br-gamma-line. Using the VLTI unit telescopes, we obtained a uv-coverage suitable for aperture synthesis imaging. We interpret our velocity-resolved images as well as the derived two-dimensional photocenter displacement vectors, and fit kinematic models to our visibility and phase data in order to constrain the gas velocity field on sub-AU scales. The measured continuum visibilities constrain the orientation of the near-infrared-emitting dust disk, where we determine that the disk major axis is oriented along a position angle of 99.6 +/- 4.8 degrees. The near-infrared continuum emission is 3.6 times more compact than the expected dust-sublimation radius, possibly indicating the presence of highly refractory dust grains or optically thick gas emission in the inner disk. Our velocity-resolved channel maps and moment maps reveal the motion of the Br-gamma-emitting gas in six velocity channels, marking the first time that kinematic effects in the sub-AU inner regions of a protoplanetary disk could be directly imaged. We find a rotation-dominated velocity field, where the blue- and red-shifted emissions are displaced along a position angle of 24 +/- 3 degrees and the approaching part of the disk is offset west of the star. The visibility drop in the line as well as the strong non-zero phase signals can be modeled reasonably well assuming a Keplerian velocity field, although this model is not able to explain the 3 sigma difference that we measure between the position angle of the line photocenters and the position angle of the dust disk. We find that the fit can be improved by adding an outflowing component to the velocity field, as inspired by a magneto-centrifugal disk-wind scenario.Comment: 15 pages, 13 Figure

Spin–orbit alignment of the β pictoris planetary system

A crucial diagnostic that can tell us about processes involved in the formation and dynamical evolution of planetary systems is the angle between the rotation axis of a star and a planet's orbital angular momentum vector ("spin-orbit" alignment or "obliquity"). Here we present the first spin-orbit alignment measurement for a wide-separation exoplanetary system, namely on the directly imaged planet β Pictoris b. We use VLTI/GRAVITY spectro-interferometry with an astrometric accuracy of 1 μas (microarcsecond) in the Brγ photospheric absorption line to measure the photocenter displacement associated with the stellar rotation. Taking inclination constraints from astroseismology into account, we constrain the three-dimensional orientation of the stellar spin axis and find that β Pic b orbits its host star on a prograde orbit. The angular momentum vectors of the stellar photosphere, the planet, and the outer debris disk are well aligned with mutual inclinations ≤3° ± 5°, which indicates that β Pic b formed in a system without significant primordial misalignments. Our results demonstrate the potential of infrared interferometry to measure the spin-orbit alignment for wide-separation planetary systems, probing a highly complementary regime to the parameter space accessible with the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect. If the low obliquity is confirmed by measurements on a larger sample of wide-separation planets, it would lend support to theories that explain the obliquity in Hot Jupiter systems with dynamical scattering and the Kozai-Lidov mechanism

Imaging the disc rim and a moving close-in companion candidate in the pre-transitional disc of V1247 Orionis

Context. V1247 Orionis harbours a pre-transitional disc with a partially cleared gap. Earlier interferometric and polarimetric observations revealed strong asymmetries both in the gap region and in the outer disc. The presence of a companion was inferred to explain these asymmetric structures and the ongoing disc clearing.We acknowledge support from an ERC Starting Grant (Grant Agreement No. 639889), STFC Rutherford Fellowship (ST/J004030/1), STFC Rutherford Grant (ST/K003445/1), Marie Sklodowska-Curie CIG grant (Ref. 618910) and Philip Leverhulme Prize (PLP-2013-110). We additionally acknowledge support from NASA KPDA grants (JPL-1452321, 1474717, 1485953, 1496788)

Compact gaseous accretion disk in Keplerian rotation around MWC 147

Context. The disks around some Herbig Be stars have been observed to be more compact than the expected dust sublimation radius for such objects. Highly refractory dust grains and optically thick gas emission have been proposed as possible explanations for this phenomenon. Aims. Previously, the “undersized” Herbig Be star MWC 147 was observed with interferometry, and the results indicated a presence of a compact gaseous disk based on the measured wavelength-dependence of near-infrared or mid-infrared visibilities. Our aim is to search for direct evidence for the presence of hot gas inside of the expected dust sublimation radius of MWC 147. Methods. By combining VLTI/AMBER spectro-interferometry (R = 12 000) with CRIRES spectroscopy (R = 100 000) we can both spectrally and spatially resolve the Brγ line-emitting gas around MWC 147. Additionally, using CHARA/CLIMB enables us to achieve baseline lengths up to 330 m, offering ~2 times higher angular resolution (and a better position angle coverage) than has previously been achieved with interferometry for MWC 147. To model the continuum we fit our AMBER and CLIMB measurements with a geometric model of an inclined Gaussian distribution as well as a ring model. We fit our high-resolution spectra and spectro-interferometric data with a kinematic model of a disk in Keplerian rotation. Results. Our interferometric visibility modelling of MWC 147 indicates the presence of a compact continuum disk with a close to face-on orientation. We model the continuum with an inclined Gaussian and a ring with a radius of 0.60 mas (0.39 au), which is well within the expected dust sublimation radius of 1.52 au. We detect no significant change in the measured visibilities across the Brγ line, indicating that the line-emitting gas is located in the same region as the continuum-emitting disk. Using our differential phase data we construct photocentre displacement vectors across the Brγ line, revealing a velocity profile consistent with a rotating disk. We fit our AMBER spectro-interferometry data with a kinematic model of a disk in Keplerian rotation, where both the line-emitting and continuum-emitting components of the disk originate from the same compact region close to the central star. The presence of line-emitting gas in the same region as the K-band continuum supports the interpretation that the K-band continuum traces an optically thick gas disk. Conclusions. Our spatially and spectrally resolved observations of MWC 147 reveal that the K-band continuum and Brγ emission both originate from a similar region which is 3.9 times more compact than the expected dust sublimation radius for the star; Brγ is emitted from the accretion disk or disk wind region and exhibits a rotational velocity profile. We conclude that we detect the presence of a compact, gaseous accretion disk in Keplerian rotation around MWC 147

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

North America's maritime museums : an annotated guide

xi, 371 p.; 28 cm