A disc in the heart of the Ant nebula

TL;DR

This paper reports the discovery of a nearly edge-on silicate dust disc at the center of the Ant nebula, using VLTI observations and radiative transfer modeling to determine its properties and size.

Contribution

First direct detection and characterization of a silicate dust disc in the core of the Ant nebula using interferometry and radiative transfer simulations.

Findings

Disc has an inner radius of approximately 9 AU.

Disc is nearly edge-on and perpendicular to the bipolar outflow.

Mid-IR spectrum shows amorphous silicate absorption.

Abstract

We present the discovery of a silicate disc at the centre of the planetary nebula Mz3 (the Ant). The nebula was observed with MIDI on the Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI). The visibilities obtained at different orientations clearly indicate the presence of a dusty, nearly edge-on disc in the heart of the nebula. An amorphous silicate absorption feature is clearly seen in our mid-IR spectrum and visibility curves. We used radiative transfer Monte Carlo simulations to constrain the geometrical and physical parameters of the disc. We derive an inner radius of 9 AU (~6mas assuming D=1.4kpc). This disc is perpendicular to, but a factor of 10^{3} smaller than the optical bipolar outflow.