A disk-based dynamical constraint on the mass of the young binary DQ Tau
Abstract
We present new Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA) observations of CO J = 2-1 line emission from the DQ Tau circumbinary disk. These data are used to tomographically reconstruct the Keplerian disk velocity field in a forward-modeling inference framework, and thereby provide a dynamical constraint on the mass of the DQ Tau binary of M = 1.27-0.27+0.46 M⊙. Those results are compared with an updated and improved orbital solution for this double-lined system based on long-term monitoring of its stellar radial velocities. Both of these independent dynamical constraints on the binary mass are in excellent agreement: taken together, they demonstrate that the DQ Tau system mass is 1.21 ± 0.26 M⊙ and that the disk and binary orbital planes are aligned within 3° (at 3σ confidence). The predictions of various theoretical models for pre-main-sequence stellar evolution are also consistent with these masses, though more detailed comparisons are difficult due to lingering uncertainties regarding the photospheric properties of the individual components. DQ Tau is the third, nearly equal-mass, double-lined spectroscopic binary with a circumbinary disk that has been dynamically “weighed” with these two independent techniques: all show consistent results, validating the overall accuracy of the disk-based approach and demonstrating that it can be robustly applied to large samples of young, single stars as ALMA ramps up to operations at full capacity.
Citation
Czekala , I , Andrews , S M , Torres , G , Jensen , E L N , Stassun , K G , Wilner , D J & Latham , D W 2016 , ' A disk-based dynamical constraint on the mass of the young binary DQ Tau ' , Astrophysical Journal , vol. 818 , no. 2 , 156 . https://doi.org/10.3847/0004-637X/818/2/156
Publication
Astrophysical Journal
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
0004-637XType
Journal article
Rights
Copyright © 2016 The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved. This work has been made available online in accordance with publisher policies or with permission. Permission for further reuse of this content should be sought from the publisher or the rights holder. This is the final published version of the work, which was originally published at https://doi.org/10.3847/0004-637X/818/2/156.
Description
Funding: I.C. gratefully acknowledges funding support from the Smithsonian Institution. S.A. appreciates the very helpful support provided by the NRAO Student Observing Support program related to the early development of this project.Collections
Items in the St Andrews Research Repository are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.