Cool Stars 14 - Submitted Abstract # 330
This version created on 05 October 2006

Probing Pre-Planetary Disks at sub-AU Scales with IOTA Closure Phases


Rafael Millan-Gabet, Caltech
John Monnier, U. Michigan
Obs. Grenoble Jean-Philipe Berger
W. A. Traub, JPL
F. P. Schloerb, U. Massachusetts Amherst
E. Pedretti, U. Michigan
M. Benisty, Obs. Grenoble
N. P. Carleton, SAO
P. Haguenauer, ESO
P. Kern, Obs. Grenoble
P. Labeye, LETI
M. G. Lacasse, SAO
F. Malbet, Obs. Grenoble
K. Perraut, Obs. Grenoble
M. Pearlman, SAO
N. Thureau, U. Michigan

Optical long baseline interferometers operating at near-infrared
wavelengths from the ground have in recent years provided direct new
views into the inner (sub-AU) regions of pre-planetary disks around
young stars.  We present new results from the IOTA interferometer,
which has recently completed the first survey of young stellar objects
using closure phases.  These observations directly probe the
morphology of the inner disk emission, thus testing models of the
detailed physical properties of the disk inner rim.  We also present a
surprising result for the young star AB Aurigae, for which a closure
phase signal appears at larger (few-AU) spatial scales, best modelled
as a disk hot-spot, and which, excitingly, could physically correspond
to a forming sub-stellar companion.  

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