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A snapshot of the inner dusty regions of a RCrB-type variable

I. C. Leao·Patrick De Laverny·O. Chesneau·D. Mekarnia·J. R. De Medeiros
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Abstract

R Coronae Borealis variable stars are suspected to sporadically eject optically thick dust clouds causing, when one of them lies on the line-of-sight, a huge brightness decline in visible light. Mid-infrared interferometric observations of RYSgr allowed us to explore the circumstellar regions very close to the central star (~20-40 mas) in order to look for the signature of any heterogeneities. Using the VLTI/MIDI instrument, five dispersed visibility curves were recorded with different projected baselines oriented towards two roughly perpendicular directions. The large spatial frequencies visibility curves exhibit a sinusoidal shape whereas, at shorter spatial frequencies visibility curves follow a Gaussian decrease. These observations are well interpreted with a geometrical model consisting in a central star surrounded by an extended circumstellar envelope in which one bright cloud is embedded. Within this simple geometrical scheme, the inner 110AU dusty environment of RYSgr is dominated at the time of observations by a single dusty cloud which, at 10mic represents ~10% of the total flux of the whole system. The cloud is located at about 100stellar radii from the centre toward the East-North-East direction (or the symmetric direction with respect to centre) within a circumstellar envelope which FWHM is about 120stellar radii. This first detection of a cloud so close to the central star, supports the classical scenario of the RCrB brightness variations in the optical spectral domain.

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I. C. Leao, Patrick De Laverny, O. Chesneau, D. Mekarnia, J. R. De Medeiros. 2007-02-01. A snapshot of the inner dusty regions of a RCrB-type variable. https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361%3A20077128

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