Are All ``Transition Disks'' Circumbinary?

Details Are All ``Transition Disks'' Circumbinary? Are All ``Transition Disks'' Circumbinary?

Aug 2008

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008noao.prop..104j&link_type=abstract

NOAO Proposal ID #2008B-0104

Physics

Optics

Scientific paper

A small fraction of circumstellar disks show evidence of large inner holes at the age of a few Myr. These so-called ``transition disks'' have received widespread attention as excellent laboratories for studies of planet formation processes. Some theorists have suggested that newborn massive planets account for the disk clearing. If true, that would imply a very rapid timescale for giant planet formation. However, recent observations have revealed that the central stars of two of the best-known ``transition disks'' are close binaries. Here we propose to investigate whether all ``transition disks'' are in fact circumbinary disks, by conducting the most comprehensive search to date for binarity among their hosts, using aperture masking interferometry and adaptive optics with NIRC2 on Keck. If most of our targets turn out to be binaries, that will eliminate the need to invoke planets as the explanation. Furthermore, tight pairs resolved in our survey will be ideal targets for follow-up observations to derive binary orbits, both to determine whether they could explain the inner disk truncation radii and to derive dynamical masses for constraining stellar evolutionary models.

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