Discovery of an Inner Disk Component around HD 141569 A

TL;DR

This paper reports the discovery of an inner disk component around HD 141569 A using HST/STIS coronagraphy, revealing new structures and setting limits on planetary bodies within the disk gap.

Contribution

The study presents the first imaging of an inner disk component around HD 141569 A, expanding understanding of its circumstellar environment.

Findings

Inner disk traced from 46 to 116 AU with forward scattering.

Detected a pericenter offset of about 6 AU.

Set an upper limit of 9±3 M_J for planetary mass bodies in the gap.

Abstract

We report the discovery of a scattering component around the HD 141569 A circumstellar debris system, interior to the previously known inner ring. The discovered inner disk component, obtained in broadband optical light with HST/STIS coronagraphy, was imaged with an inner working angle of 0".25, and can be traced from 0".4 (~46 AU) to 1".0 (~116 AU) after deprojection using i=55deg. The inner disk component is seen to forward scatter in a manner similar to the previously known rings, has a pericenter offset of ~6 AU, and break points where the slope of the surface brightness changes. It also has a spiral arm trailing in the same sense as other spiral arms and arcs seen at larger stellocentric distances. The inner disk spatially overlaps with the previously reported warm gas disk seen in thermal emission. We detect no point sources within 2" (~232 AU), in particular in the gap between the inner disk component and the inner ring. Our upper limit of 9+/-3 M_J is augmented by a new dynamical limit on single planetary mass bodies in the gap between the inner disk component and the inner ring of 1 M_J, which is broadly consistent with previous estimates.