Disk Evolution Study Through Imaging of Nearby Young Stars (DESTINYS): A Panchromatic View of DO Tau's Complex Kilo-au Environment

TL;DR

This study uses multi-wavelength imaging to reveal complex, extended structures around DO Tau, suggesting environmental interactions influence disk evolution beyond isolated models.

Contribution

It provides the first combined panchromatic imaging of DO Tau's environment, revealing large-scale streams and bridges that suggest external interactions.

Findings

Discovered extended arms and streams connecting DO Tau to its environment.

Identified bridge-like structures linking DO Tau and HV Tau.

Detected a redshifted CO outflow component.

Abstract

While protoplanetary disks are often treated as isolated systems in planet formation models, observations increasingly suggest that vigorous interactions between Class II disks and their environments are not rare. DO Tau is a T Tauri star that has previously been hypothesized to have undergone a close encounter with the HV Tau system. As part of the DESTINYS ESO Large Programme, we present new VLT/SPHERE polarimetric observations of DO Tau and combine them with archival HST scattered light images and ALMA observations of CO isotopologues and CS to map a network of complex structures. The SPHERE and ALMA observations show that the circumstellar disk is connected to arms extending out to several hundred au. HST and ALMA also reveal stream-like structures northeast of DO Tau, some of which are at least several thousand au long. These streams appear not to be gravitationally bound to DO Tau, and comparisons with previous Herschel far-IR observations suggest that the streams are part of a bridge-like structure connecting DO Tau and HV Tau. We also detect a fainter redshifted counterpart to a previously known blueshifted CO outflow. While some of DO Tau's complex structures could be attributed to a recent disk-disk encounter, they might be explained alternatively by interactions with remnant material from the star formation process. These panchromatic observations of DO Tau highlight the need to contextualize the evolution of Class II disks by examining processes occurring over a wide range of size scales.