English

Constraining the Circumbinary Disk Tilt in the KH 15D system

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics 2021-03-24 v2 Solar and Stellar Astrophysics

Abstract

KH 15D is a system which consists of a young, eccentric binary, and a circumbinary disk which obscures the binary as the disk precesses. We develop a self-consistent model that provides a reasonable fit to the photometric variability that was observed in the KH 15D system over the past 60 years. Our model suggests that the circumbinary disk has an inner edge rin1 aur_{\rm in}\lesssim 1 \ {\rm au}, an outer edge routa few aur_{\rm out} \sim {\rm a \ few \ au}, and that the disk is misaligned relative to the stellar binary by \sim5-16 degrees, with the inner edge more inclined than the outer edge. The difference between the inclinations (warp) and longitude of ascending nodes (twist) at the inner and outer edges of the disk are of order \sim10 degrees and \sim15 degrees, respectively. We also provide constraints on other properties of the disk, such as the precession period and surface density profile. Our work demonstrates the power of photometric data in constraining the physical properties of planet-forming circumbinary disks.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2009.14204,
  title  = {Constraining the Circumbinary Disk Tilt in the KH 15D system},
  author = {Michael Poon and J. J. Zanazzi and Wei Zhu},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2009.14204},
  year   = {2021}
}

Comments

17 pages, 9 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-23T18:53:18.028Z