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Detection of a Proto-planetary Clump in the Habitable Zone of GM Cephei

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 April 2014

W. P. Chen
Affiliation:
Graduate Institute of Astronomy, National Central University, 300 Jhongda Road, Jhongli 32001, Taiwan email: wchen@astro.ncu.edu.tw
S. C.-L. Hu
Affiliation:
Graduate Institute of Astronomy, National Central University, 300 Jhongda Road, Jhongli 32001, Taiwan email: wchen@astro.ncu.edu.tw Taipei Astronomical Museum, 363 Jihe Rd., Shilin, Taipei 11160, Taiwan
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Abstract

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GM Cephei is an active T Tauri star in the young open cluster Trumpler 37, showing abrupt UX Orionis type of photometric variability. Its light curves exhibit frequent, sporadic brightening events, each of <0.5 mag and lasting for days, which must have been originated from unsteady circumstellar accretion. In addition, the star undergoes a brightness drop up to ~1 mag lasting for about a month, during which the star became bluer when fainter. Moreover, the brightness drops seem to have a recurrence timescale of about 300 days. It is proposed that the brightness drop arises from obscuration of the central star by an orbiting dust concentration, exemplifying disk inhomogeneity in transition between grain coagulation and planetesimal formation in a young circumstellar disk. GM Cep was found to show a few percent polarization in the optical wavelengths, and an enhanced level of polarization during the occultation phase.

Type
Contributed Papers
Copyright
Copyright © International Astronomical Union 2014 

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