Interpretation of optical and IR light curves for transitional disk candidates in NGC 2264 using the extincted stellar radiation and the emission of optically thin dust inside the hole

TL;DR

This study models optical and IR light curves of transitional disk candidates in NGC 2264, revealing their disk types and disk structures through combined stellar extinction and dust emission analysis.

Contribution

It introduces a method to interpret light curves by combining stellar extinction and dust emission, and reclassifies some disks based on radiative transfer modeling.

Findings

Mon-296 hosts a transitional disk.

Mon-1308 hosts a full disk, not a transitional disk.

Some candidates are pre-transitional disks.

Abstract

In the stellar forming region NGC 2264 there are objects catalogued as hosting a transitional disk according to spectrum modeling. Four members of this set have optical and infrared light curves coming from the CoRoT and Spitzer telescopes. In this work, we try to simultaneously explain the light curves using the extinction of the stellar radiation and the emission of the dust inside the hole of a transitional disk. For the object Mon-296, we were successful. However, for Mon-314, and Mon-433 our evidence suggests that they host a pre-transitional disk. For Mon-1308 a new spectrum fitting using the 3D radiative transfer code Hyperion allows us to conclude that this object hosts a full disk instead of a transitional disk. This is in accord to previous work on Mon-1308 and with the fact that we cannot find a fit for the light curves using only the contribution of the dust inside the hole of a transitional disk.