HST/STIS High-Resolution Imaging Of The Hr 4796A Circumstellar Debris Ring

Details HST/STIS High-Resolution Imaging Of The Hr 4796A Circumstellar Debris Ring HST/STIS High-Resolution Imaging Of The Hr 4796A Circumstellar Debris Ring

Jan 2009

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009aas...21340905s&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #213, #409.05; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 41, p.208

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We present high spatial resolution coronagraphic imaging observations of the HR 4796A circumstellar debris dust ring that we obtained using the broad optical response of the Hubble Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph. We use our visual wavelength observations to improve upon the earlier measured geometrical parameters of the ring-like disk originally determined from lower resolution HST/NICMOS observations. Two significant flux density asymmetries in the dust ring are noted: (1) preferential forward scattering by the disk grains and (2) an azimuthal surface brightness anisotropy about the morphological minor axis of the disk with corresponding differential ansal brightness. We find the debris ring offset from the location of the star by less than 1.4 AU, a shift insufficient to explain the differing brightnesses of the NE and SW ansae simply by the 1/r^2 dimmunition of starlight. The STIS data also better quantify the radial confinement of the starlight-scattering circumstellar debris, to a characteristic region less than 14 AU in photometric half-width, with a significantly steeper inner truncation than outward falloff in radial surface brightness. The inferred spatial distribution of the disk grains is consistent with the possibility of one or more unseen co-orbital planetary-mass perturbers. The colors of the disk grains are consistent with a collisionally evolved population of debris, possibly including ices reddened by radiation exposure to the central star. This work is based on observations with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, obtained at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by AURA, Inc. under NASA contract NAS2-6555 and supported by NASA grants NAG5-3042 and GO 8624 and 10177.

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