The Ultimate Mid-Life Crisis: Active Accretion of Gas and Dust and Planet-Formation around Old Stars

Details The Ultimate Mid-Life Crisis: Active Accretion of Gas and Dust and Planet-Formation around Old Stars The Ultimate Mid-Life Crisis: Active Accretion of Gas and Dust and Planet-Formation around Old Stars

Dec 2007

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2007aas...211.8106m&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #211, #81.06; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 39, p.872

Physics

Optics

Scientific paper

Rapid accretion of gas and dust onto stars is a characteristic of young Classical T Tauri stars. With IRAS and ground-based telescopes we have discovered two old stars that are currently undergoing a stage of rapid accretion (> 10^-8 Msun/yr) from a surrounding disk of dust and gas. The two stars are either on the main sequence or are giant stars. No stars in either of these stages of stellar evolution have ever been reported with such large, or even any, mass accretion rates from a surrounding disk. In both cases the stars are far from the Galactic plane and isolated from any star formation regions. As such, the origin of the accreting gas and dust is unclear, but it could be the consequence of the recent gravitational shredding of a low mass stellar or substellar companion.
It is likely that a new generation of planet-formation is currently ongoing in these `old-star' disks. Both systems are re-radiating a substantial fraction of their bolometric luminosities at infrared wavelengths and the adaptive optics-resolved disks around both stars must be puffed up or warped to have the right geometry to process the necessary amount of radiation. Planetesimals and planetary-embryos could gravitationally perturb dust particles in the disk and give it the necessary shape.

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