The high occurrence rates of spiral arms and large central clearings in protoplanetary disks, if interpreted as signposts of giant planets, indicate that gas giants form commonly as companions to young stars ($<$ few Myr) at orbital separations of 10--300\,au. However, attempts to directly image this giant planet population as companions to more mature stars ($> 10$\, Myr) have yielded few successes. This discrepancy could be explained if most giant planets form "cold start," i.e., by radiating away much of their formation energy as they assemble their mass, rendering them faint enough to elude detection at later times. In that case, giant planets should be bright at early times, during their accretion phase, and yet forming planets are detected only rarely through direct imaging techniques. Here we explore the possibility that the low detection rate of accreting planets is the result of episodic accretion through a circumplanetary disk. We also explore the possibility that the companion orbiting the Herbig Ae star HD~142527 may be a giant planet undergoing such an accretion outburst.
A spectacular transient mass-loss episode from the extremely hot, hydrogen-deficient central star of the planetary nebula (PN) Longmore 4 was discovered in 1992 by Werner et al. During that event, the star temporarily changed from its normal PG 1159 spectrum to that of an emission-line low-luminosity early-type Wolf-Rayet [WCE] star. After a few days, Lo 4 reverted to its normal, predominantly absorption-line PG 1159 type. To determine whether such events recur, and if so how often, I monitored the optical spectrum of Lo 4 from early 2003 to early 2012. Out of 81 spectra taken at random dates,…
Proto-planetary nebulae (pPN) and planetary nebulae (PN) seem to be formed by interacting winds from asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars. The observational issue that most pPN are bipolar but most older PN are elliptical is addressed. We present 2.5D hydrodynamical numerical simulations of episodic cooling interacting winds to investigate the long term evolution of PN morphologies. We track wind acceleration, decrease in mass-loss and episodic change in wind geometry from spherical (AGB) to collimated (pPN) and back to spherical again (PN). This outflow sequence is found to produce realistic P…
Most planetary nebulae (PNe) show beautiful, axisymmetric morphologies despite their progenitor stars being essentially spherical. Angular momentum provided by a close binary companion is widely invoked as the main agent that would help eject an axisymmetric nebula, after a brief phase of engulfment of the secondary within the envelope of the Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) star, known as a common envelope (CE). The evolution of the AGB would be thus interrupted abruptly, its (still quite) massive envelope fully ejected to form the PN, which should be more massive than a PN coming from the same …
We present the discovery of WISEA J083011.95+283716.0, the first Y dwarf candidate identified through the Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 citizen science project. We identified this object as a red, fast-moving source with a faint $W2$ detection in multi-epoch \textit{AllWISE} and unWISE images. We have characterized this object with Spitzer Space Telescope and \textit{Hubble Space Telescope} follow-up imaging. With mid-infrared detections in \textit{Spitzer}'s \emph{ch1} and \emph{ch2} bands and flux upper limits in Hubble Space Telescope $F105W$ and $F125W$ filters, we find that this object is bot…
Water fountains are evolved stars showing early stages of collimated mass loss during transition from the asymptotic giant branch, providing valuable insight into the formation of asymmetric planetary nebulae. We report the results of multi-epoch VLBI observations, which determine the spatial and three-dimensional kinematic structure of H2O masers associated with the water fountain IRAS 18113-2503. The masers trace three pairs of high-velocity (~150-300 km/s) bipolar bow shocks on a scale of 0.18'' (~2000 au). The expansion velocities of the bow shocks exhibit an exponential decrease as a func…
The formation and evolution of a circumstellar disk in magnetized cloud cores is investigated from prestellar core stage until sim 10^4 yr after protostar formation. In the circumstellar disk, fragmentation first occurs due to gravitational instability in a magnetically inactive region, and substellar-mass objects appear. The substellar-mass objects lose their orbital angular momenta by gravitational interaction with the massive circumstellar disk and finally fall onto the protostar. After this fall, the circumstellar disk increases its mass by mass accretion and again induces fragmentation. T…
Classical DQ stars are white dwarfs whose atmospheres contain detectable traces of carbon brought up to the surface by a convective dredge-up process. Intriguingly, unlike other white dwarf spectral classes, DQ stars virtually never show signs of external pollution by elements heavier than carbon. In this Letter, we solve this long-standing problem by showing that the absence of detectable external pollution in DQ stars is naturally explained by the impact of metal accretion on the atmospheric structure of the white dwarf. A DQ star that accretes heavy elements sees its atmospheric density dec…
Most planetary nebulae (PNe) show beautiful, axisymmetric morphologies despite their progenitor stars being essentially spherical. Close binarity is widely invoked to help eject an axisymmetric nebula, after a brief phase of engulfment of the secondary within the envelope of the Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) star, known as the common envelope (CE). The evolution of the AGB would thus be interrupted abruptly, its envelope being rapidly ejected to form the PN, which a priori would be more massive than a PN coming from the same star, were it single. We aim at testing this hypothesis by investigat…
The discovery of terrestrial exoplanets orbiting in habitable zones around nearby stars has been one of the significant developments in modern astronomy. More than a dozen such planets, like Proxima Centauri b and TRAPPIST-1 e, are in close-in configurations and their proximity to the host star makes them highly sensitive to stellar activity. Episodic events such as flares have the potential to cause severe damage to close-in planets, adversely impacting their habitability. Flares on fast rotating young M stars occur up to 100 times more frequently than on G-type stars which makes their planet…
This review introduces physical processes in protoplanetary disks relevant to accretion and the initial stages of planet formation. After a brief overview of the observational context, I introduce the elementary theory of disk structure and evolution, review the gas-phase physics of angular momentum transport through turbulence and disk winds, and discuss possible origins for the episodic accretion observed in Young Stellar Objects. Turning to solids, I review the evolution of single particles under aerodynamic forces, and describe the conditions necessary for the development of collective gas…
The presence of magnetic fields is an attractive hypothesis for shaping PNe. We report on observations of the central star of the two Planetary Nebulae NGC1360 and LSS1326. We performed spectroscopy on circularly polarized light with the FOcal Reducer and low dispersion Spectrograph at the Very Large Telescope of the European Southern Observatory. Contrary to previous reports (Jordan et al. 2005, A&A, 432, 273), we find that the effective magnetic field, that is the average over the visible stellar disk of longitudinal components of the magnetic fields, is null within errors for both stars. We…
Context. As a star evolves, the planet orbits change with time due to tidal interactions, stellar mass losses, friction and gravitational drag forces, mass accretion and evaporation on/by the planet. Stellar rotation modifies the structure of the star and therefore the way these different processes occur. Changes of the orbits, at their turn, have an impact on the rotation of the star. Aims. Models accounting in a consistent way for these interactions between the orbital evolution of the planet and the evolution of the rotation of the star are still missing. The present work is a first attempt…
Planetary nebulae are ionized clouds of gas formed by the hydrogen-rich envelopes of low- and intermediate-mass stars ejected at late evolutionary stages. The strong UV flux from their central stars causes a highly stratified ionization structure, with species of higher ionization potential closer to the star. Here we report on the exceptional case of HuBi 1, a double-shell planetary nebula whose inner shell presents emission from low-ionization species close to the star and emission from high-ionization species farther away. Spectral analysis demonstrates that the inner shell of HuBi 1 is exc…
Although episodic star formation (SF) had been suggested for nearby SF regions, a panoramic view to the latest episodic SF history in the solar neighborhood is still missing. By uniformly constraining the slope $α$ of infrared spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of young stellar objects (YSOs) in the 13 largest Gould's Belt (GB) protoclusters surveyed by Spitzer Space Telescope, we have constructed a cluster-averaged histogram of $α$ representing YSO evolution lifetime as a function of the $α$ value. Complementary to the traditional SED classification scheme (0, I, F, II, III) that is based o…
Faint young Sun paradox (FYSP) is one of the unsolved problem in solar physics. The present study aims to get a possible solution for the FYSP through sun-like G stars and their exoplanetary systems. Using physical properties of exoplanetary data, an empirical relationship between the rate of mass loss ($\frac{dM}{dt}$) with stellar mass (M$_{\star}$) and age ({\em t}) is obtained. We found mass loss rate varies with stellar mass as $\propto$ $(M_{\star}/M_\odot)^{-3.788}$ and proportional to the age as $\propto$ t$^{-1.25}$, which indicates rate of mass loss is higher during early evolutionar…
Low-mass protostars are less luminous than expected. This luminosity problem is important because the observations appear to be inconsistent with some of the basic premises of star formation theory. Two possible solutions are that stars form slowly, which is supported by recent data, and/or that protostellar accretion is episodic; current data suggest that the latter accounts for less than half the missing luminosity. The solution to the luminosity problem bears directly on the fundamental problem of the time required to form a low-mass star. The protostellar mass and luminosity functions prov…
We review the state of the field of terrestrial planet formation with the goal of understanding the formation of the inner Solar System and low-mass exoplanets. We review the dynamics and timescales of accretion from planetesimals to planetary embryos and from embryos to terrestrial planets. We discuss radial mixing and water delivery, planetary spins and the importance of parameters regarding the disk and embryo properties. Next, we connect accretion models to exoplanets. We first explain why the observed hot Super Earths probably formed by in situ accretion or inward migration. We show how t…
Do extrasolar planets affect the activity of their host stars? Indications for chromospheric activity enhancement have been found for a handful of targets, but in the X-ray regime, conclusive observational evidence is still missing. We want to establish a sound observational basis to confirm or reject major effects of Star-Planet Interactions (SPI) in stellar X-ray emissions. We therefore conduct a statistical analysis of stellar X-ray activity of all known planet-bearing stars within 30pc distance for dependencies on planetary parameters such as mass and semimajor axis. We find that in our sa…
We aim at unveiling the observational imprint of physical mechanisms that govern planetary formation in young, multiple systems. In particular, we investigate the impact of tidal truncation on the inner circumstellar disks. We observed the emblematic system GG Tau at high-angular resolution: a hierarchical quadruple system composed of low-mass T Tauri binary stars surrounded by a well-studied, massive circumbinary disk in Keplerian rotation. We used the near-IR 4-telescope combiner PIONIER on the VLTI and sparse-aperture-masking techniques on VLT/NaCo to probe this proto-planetary system at su…
New instruments and telescopes, such as SPIRou, CARMENES and TESS, will increase manyfold the number of known planets orbiting M dwarfs. To guide future radio observations, we estimate radio emission from known M-dwarf planets using the empirical radiometric prescription derived in the solar system, in which radio emission is powered by the wind of the host star. Using solar-like wind models, we find that the most promising exoplanets for radio detections are GJ 674 b and Proxima b, followed by YZ Cet b, GJ 1214 b, GJ 436 b. These are the systems that are the closest to us (<10 pc). However, w…
We present spectral energy distribution (SED) modeling of 338 disks around T Tauri stars from eleven star-forming regions, ranging from $\sim$0.5 to 10 Myr old. The disk masses we infer from our SED models are typically greater than those reported from (sub)mm surveys by a factor of 1.5-5, with the discrepancy being generally higher for the more massive disks. Masses derived from (sub)mm fluxes rely on the assumption that the disks are optically thin at all millimeter wavelengths, which may cause the disk masses to be underestimated since the observed flux is not sensitive to the whole mass in…
Photometric monitoring by the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has discovered not only periodic signals by transiting exoplanets but also episodic or quasi-periodic dimming around young stellar objects. The mechanisms of the dimming of these objects, so-called "dippers", are thought to be related to the property of the accretion or the structure of protoplanetary disks especially in regions close to the host star. Recently, we have created the catalog of dippers from the one year of TESS Full Frame Image (FFI) data. In this paper, we report spectral features of four newly found dip…
We present near and mid-infrared interferometric observations made with the Keck Interferometer Nuller and near-contemporaneous spectro-photometry from the IRTF of 11 well known young stellar objects, several observed for the first time in these spectral and spatial resolution regimes. With AU-level spatial resolution, we first establish characteristic sizes of the infrared emission using a simple geometrical model consisting of a hot inner rim and mid-infrared disk emission. We find a high degree of correlation between the stellar luminosity and the mid-infrared disk sizes after using near-in…
Context. The uncertainty in the degree to which radiation-driven winds of hot stars might be affected by small inhomogeneities in the density leads to a corresponding uncertainty in the determination of the atmospheric mass loss rates from the strength of optical recombination lines. Furthermore, the optical recombination lines also react sensitively to even small changes in the density structure resulting from the (often assumed instead of computed) velocity law of the outflow. This raises the question of how reliable the parameter determinations from such lines are. Results. The discrepancy …
Jets are rarely associated with pre-main-sequence intermediate-mass stars. Optical and near-IR observations of jet-driving sources are often hindered by the presence of a natal envelope. Jets around partly embedded sources are a useful diagnostic to constrain the geometry of the concealed protoplanetary disk. In fact, the jet-driving mechanisms are affected by both spatial anisotropies and episodic variations at the (sub-)au scale from the star. We obtained a rich set of high-contrast VLT/SPHERE observations from 0.6 micron to 2.2 micron of the young intermediate-mass star RY Tau. Given the pr…
The substantial number of binary central stars of planetary nebulae (CSPNe) now known ($\sim$50) has revealed a strong connection between binarity and some morphological features including jets and low-ionisation structures. However, some features and asymmetries might be too complex or subtle to ascribe to binary interactions alone. A tertiary component, i.e. a triple nucleus, could be the missing ingredient required to produce these features. The only proven triple, NGC 246, is insufficient to investigate the shaping role of triple nuclei, but one straight-forward way to identify more triple…
(Pre-)transitional disks show gaps and cavities that can be related with on-going planet formation. According to theory, young embedded planets can accrete material from the circumplanetary and circumstellar disks, so that they could be detected in accretion tracers, like the H$_α$ emission line. In this work, we present spectral angular differential imaging AO-assisted observations of five (pre-)transitional disks obtained with SPHERE/ZIMPOL at the Very Large Telescope (VLT). They were obtained in the H$_α$ line and the adjacent continuum. We have combined spectral and angular differential im…
Signatures of rocky debris accretion in AF-Type planet hosts
INAF - Osservatorio astronomico di Palermo（意大利国家天体物理研究所帕勒莫天文台）；Centro de Astrobiología (CAB) CSIC-INTA（西班牙国家航空航天技术研究所/西班牙高等科学研究理事会天体生物学中心）；University of the Balearic Islands（巴利阿里群岛大学）；Universidad de Granada（格拉纳达大学）；Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias（加那利天体物理学研究所）
Environmental interactions in Class II systems and their impact on the disk-planet architecture
Univ. Grenoble Alpes（格勒诺布尔阿尔卑斯大学）；CNRS（法国国家科学研究中心）；IPAG（格勒诺布尔行星与天体物理实验室）；University of Warwick（华威大学）；Tsinghua University（清华大学）；Monash University（莫纳什大学）；Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen（哥本哈根大学尼尔斯玻尔研究所）
Stars and planetary systems are formed out of molecular clouds in the interstellar medium. Although the sequence of steps involved in star formation are generally known, a comprehensive theory which describes the details of the processes that drive formation of stars is still missing. The Square Kilometre Array (SKA), with its unprecedented sensitivity and angular resolution, will play a major role in filling these gaps in our understanding. In this article, we present a few science cases that the Indian star formation community is interested in pursuing with SKA, which include investigation o…
