Neutral carbon in the circumstellar envelope of alpha Orionis

Details Neutral carbon in the circumstellar envelope of alpha Orionis Neutral carbon in the circumstellar envelope of alpha Orionis

Apr 1994

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1994apj...424l.127h&link_type=abstract

Astrophysical Journal, Part 2 - Letters (ISSN 0004-637X), vol. 424, no. 2, p. L127-L130

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

35

Carbon, Chromosphere, Interstellar Gas, Molecular Gases, Stellar Envelopes, Astronomical Observatories, Space Density, Telescopes, Velocity

Scientific paper

We report the detection of emission in the 609 micrometers 3P1 to 3P0 fine-structure line of neutral atomic carbon in the circumstellar envelope of alpha Ori, using the 10.4 m telescope of the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory. The C I line is centered at a radial velocity of +3 km/s, with an intensity of 200 mK, and a width of 30 km/s, characteristic of the expanding circumstellar envelope. The observations show that C I is an important component of the circumstellar gas. The number of C I atoms in the envelope exceeds the number of CO molecules by a factor of approximately 5, and the C I column density is large enough that significant absorption of the stellar and chromospheric spectrum can be expected at wavelengths shorter than the C I ionization edge at 1100 A. The mass-loss rate determined from our observations using the photospheric carbon abundance and assuming full recombination of carbon in the transition region is 2 x 10-6 solar mass/yr. This is in good agreement with the value determined from H I 21 cm observations and confirms that C I is a major carrier of carbon between the chromosphere and the outer envelope.

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