Rings and filaments: The remarkable detached CO shell of U Antliae

Autor(en)
Franz Kerschbaum, Matthias Maercker, Magdalena Brunner, Marko Mecina, Claudia Paladini, M Lindqvist, H. Olofsson, Elvire De Beck, Martin A. T. Groenewegen, E. Lagadec, Shazrene Mohamed, Sofia Ramstedt, Wouter H. T. Vlemmings, Markus Wittkowski
Abstrakt

Aims. Our goal is to characterize the intermediate age, detached shell carbon star U Antliae morphologically and physically in order to study the mass-loss evolution after a possible thermal pulse. Methods. High spatial resolution ALMA observations of unprecedented quality in thermal CO lines allow us to derive first critical spatial and temporal scales and constrain modeling efforts to estimate mass-loss rates for both the present day as well as the ejection period of the detached shell. Results. The detached shell is remarkably thin, overall spherically symmetric, and shows a barely resolved filamentary substructure possibly caused by instabilities in the interaction zone of winds with different outflow velocities. The expansion age of the detached shell is of the order of 2700 yr and its overall width indicates a high expansion-velocity and high mass-loss period of only a few hundred years at an average mass-loss rate of ≠10

-5 M

· yr

-1. The post-high-mass-loss-rate-epoch evolution of U Ant shows a significant decline to a substantially lower gas expansion velocity and a mass-loss rate amounting to 4 × 10

-8 M

· yr

-1, at present being consistent with evolutionary changes as predicted for the period between thermal pulses.

Organisation(en)
Institut für Astrophysik
Externe Organisation(en)
Chalmers University of Technology, Université Libre de Bruxelles, University of Cape Town, The National Institute for Theoretical Physics, Royal Observatory of Belgium, Université Côte d'Azur, South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO), Uppsala University, European Southern Observatory (Germany)
Journal
Astronomy & Astrophysics
Band
605
Anzahl der Seiten
8
ISSN
0004-6361
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201730665
Publikationsdatum
09-2017
Peer-reviewed
Ja
ÖFOS 2012
103003 Astronomie, 103004 Astrophysik
Schlagwörter
ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete
Astronomy and Astrophysics, Space and Planetary Science
Link zum Portal
https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/f5e7b5ad-87f2-4a47-b081-6abc6cb5312b