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Structures in the Beta Pictoris disk at 12 um with VISIR-NEAR

Presentation #102.61 in the session Poster Session.

Published onJun 20, 2022
Structures in the Beta Pictoris disk at 12 um with VISIR-NEAR

Beta Pictoris is a young nearby system hosting a well-resolved edge-on disk, as well as at least two exoplanets. It offers key opportunities to better understand planet formation and evolution. In December 2019, we collected 12 um coronagraphic observations of this system with the VISIR-NEAR experiment taking advantage of the adaptive secondary mirror at the VLT, making those data the first high contrast images in the infrared of the system. The main objectives were to attempt to detect the planet and to study disk structure. Although planet b was not detected, the contrast achieved at the planet position was not deep enough to put constraints on atmospheric scenarios. However, we used the upper limit on the 12 um flux to derive constraints on the existence of circumplanetary material. Assuming temperatures and sizes of the dust grains which could reside around the planet between the planet Roche radius and the Hill sphere we infer the corresponding maximum mass of material. We were able to rule out the presence of a Saturn-like ring around the planet. In addition, the disk, uniquely well resolved, presents several noticeable structures, among others the known southwest clump, for which, using three previous epochs of observations at the same wavelength from 2003, 2010, 2015, with the 2019 data, we found its orbit to be Keplerian with a radius of 55.1 to 57.4 AU. This is ruling out this dust clump to be in resonance with an inner or outer planet, as well as the massive collision scenario. Furthermore, we identified another fainter clump at the northeast side of the disk, located at 33.6 AU from the star, and a width of approximately 15 AU. These dust clumps are apparently correlated with the location of the CO clumps detected with ALMA.

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