The Light Curve of the Weak-lined T Tauri Binary KH 15D from 2005-10: New Insights into the Nature of its Protoplanetary Disk
mag(2010)
Abstract
Photometry of the unique pre-main sequence binary system KH 15D is presented,
spanning the years 2005-2010. This system has exhibited photometric variations
and eclipses over the last 50 years caused by a precessing circumbinary disk.
Advancement of the occulting edge across the binary orbit has continued and the
photospheres of both stars are now completely obscured at all times. The system
is now visible only by scattered light, and yet it continues to show a periodic
variation on the orbital cycle with an amplitude exceeding two magnitudes. This
variation, which depends only on the binary phase, has likely been present in
the data since at least 1995. It can, by itself, account for shoulders on the
light curve prior to ingress and following egress, obviating the need for
components of extant models such as a scattering halo around star A or forward
scattering from a fuzzy disk edge. A plausible source for the variable
scattering component is reflected light from the far side of a warped occulting
disk. We have detected color changes in V-I of several tenths of a magnitude to
both the blue and red that occur during times of minima. These may indicate the
presence of a third source of light (faint star) within the system, or a change
in the reflectance properties of the disk as the portion being illuminated
varies with the orbital motion of the stars. The data support a picture of the
circumbinary disk as a geometrically thin, optically thick layer of perhaps mm
or cm-sized particles that has been sculpted by the binary stars and possibly
other components into a decidedly nonplanar configuration. A simple (infinitely
sharp) knife-edge model does a good job of accounting for all of the recent
(2005-2010) occultation data.
MoreTranslated text
Key words
binary star,brown dwarf,solar system
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