As sky surveys continue to document an increasing number of transient celestial phenomena, an intriguing subset of objects are emerging that show variations in brightness, interpreted as the transit of a circumstellar disk in front of a companion star in a binary system. The brightest member of this class is the F0 supergiant star plus disk binary, epsilon Aurigae, along with more than a dozen new candidates sharing similarities. Better-known cases include EE Cep, BM Ori and KH15D. Characteristics of all of these are discussed in terms of their suitability for interferometric study. Next generation interferometric imaging offers the potential to detect disk structures that are driven by dynamical forces, chemical transitions and thermal gradients. These include observable effects of tidal spiral density waves, dust and planetessimal formation/evolution in disks, and orbital phase-dependent heating of the disk by the external companion star.

Date Published: 4 August 2016
PDF: 8 pages
Proc. SPIE 9907, Optical and Infrared Interferometry and Imaging V, 990717 (4 August 2016); doi: 10.1117/12.2231091

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 9907:
Optical and Infrared Interferometry and Imaging V
Fabien Malbet; Michelle J. Creech-Eakman; Peter G. Tuthill, Editor(s)