Related papers: VLTI/PIONIER images the Achernar disk swell
Context: The observed orbital characteristics of post-asymptotic giant branch (post-AGB) and post-red giant branch (post-RGB) binaries are not understood. We suspect that the missing ingredients to explain them probably lie in the…
The nearby and young M star AU Mic is surrounded by a debris disk in which we previously identified a series of large-scale arch-like structures that have never been seen before in any other debris disk and that move outward at high…
Multi-epoch observations have revealed the variability of pre-main sequence stars and/or their environment. Moreover, structures in orbital motion around the central star, resulting from planet-disk interaction, are predicted to cause…
Circumstellar disks are characteristic for star formation and vanish during the first few Myr of stellar evolution. During this time planets are believed to form in the dense midplane by growth, sedimentation and aggregation of dust.…
We present high angular resolution observations with the Keck Interferometer, high dispersion spectroscopic observations with Keck/NIRSPEC, and near-IR photometric observations from PAIRITEL of a sample of 11 solar-type T Tauri stars in 9…
Context. The star HD 87643, exhibiting the "B[e] phenomenon", has one of the most extreme infrared excesses for this object class. It harbours a large amount of both hot and cold dust, and is surrounded by an extended reflection nebula.…
Circumstellar disks are an essential ingredient of the formation of low-mass stars. It is unclear, however, whether the accretion-disk paradigm can also account for the formation of stars more massive than about 10 solar masses, in which…
Context: Debris disks are important observational clues for understanding planetary-system formation process. In particular, faint warm debris disks may be related to late planet formation near 1 AU. A systematic search of faint warm debris…
The formation of astrophysical objects of different nature and size, from black holes to gaseous giant planets, involves a disk-jet system, where the disk drives the mass accretion onto a central compact object and the jet is a fast…
Planet formation has been known for many years to be tied to the spatial distribution of gas and dust in disks around young stars. To constrain planet formation models, imaging observations of protoplanetary disks are required. In this…
The geometrical relationship between the distribution of circumstellar matter, observed optical linear polarization, outflows and binary orbital plane in Herbig Ae/Be stars is investigated. Optical linear polarization measurements carried…
[Context] Recent detections of disks around young high-mass stars support the idea of massive star formation through accretion rather than coalescence, but the detailed kinematics in the equatorial region of the disk candidates is not well…
Context. Determining the mass transfer in a close binary system is of prime importance for understanding its evolution. SS Leporis, a symbiotic star showing the Algol paradox and presenting clear evidence of ongoing mass transfer, in which…
(Abridged) Classical Be stars occasionally transition from having a gaseous circumstellar disk (''Be phase'') to a state in which all observational evidence for the presence of these disks disappears (''normal B-star phase''). We present…
Massive stars deeply influence their surroundings by their luminosity and the injection of kinetic energy. So far, they have mostly been studied with spatially unresolved observations, although evidence of geometrical complexity of their…
Studying young protoplanetary disks is essential for understanding planet formation, but traditional angular differential imaging can introduce self-subtraction artefacts that hinder interpretation of small-scale structures. We present…
The spatial distribution and lifetime of molecular gas in the inner regions of young circumstellar disks are key to understanding the formation of planetary systems. Gas-rich disks are observed to disperse in the first ~10 Myr, and recent…
The near-star environment around young stars is very dynamic with winds, disks, and outflows. These processes are involved in star and planet formation, and influence the formation and habitability of planets around host stars. Even for the…
Increasing evidence suggests that, similar to their low-mass counterparts, high-mass stars form through a disk-mediated accretion process. At the same time, formation of high-mass stars still necessitates high accretion rates, and hence,…
Young circumstellar disks are of prime interest to understand the physical and chemical conditions under which planet formation takes place. Only very few detections of planet candidates within these disks exist, and most of them are…