ZZ Tau IRS: a low mass UX Ori type star with strong wind

TL;DR

This study presents multi-wavelength observations of ZZ Tau IRS, a low-mass UX Ori star with strong wind activity, revealing its variability, emission lines, and asymmetric disc wind structure.

Contribution

It provides detailed observational evidence linking dust cloud eclipses to variability and characterizes the star's wind and jet properties, highlighting its atypically high mass-loss rate.

Findings

Brightness decreased by 1.5 magnitudes from 2020 to 2023

Polarization in I band reached 13% at light minimum

Jet mass-loss rate exceeds 5 x 10^-10 M_sun/yr

Abstract

The results of photometric, polarimetric and spectroscopic observations of the young star ZZ Tau IRS in the visible and near-infrared bands are presented. Against the continuum of an M spectral type star about 50 emission lines of allowed (HI, HeI, NaI, SII) and forbidden (OI, OII, OIII, NI, NII, SII, CaII, FeII, NiII) transitions were identified. It was found that from the autumn of 2020 to the beginning of 2023, the brightness of the star in the visible region decreased $(\Delta I \approx 1.5^m),$ and then began to return to initial level. As the visible brightness of the star declined, its colour indices decreased in the visible region, but increased in the near-IR bands. At light minimum, the degree of polarization in the $I$ band reached $\approx$ 13%, and the equivalent widths of e.g. the H$\alpha$ and [SII] 6731 A lines increased to 376 and 79 A, respectively. Arguments are given in favour of ZZ Tau IRS being a UX Ori type star, and its variability being due to eclipses by dust clouds, which are inhomogeneities in the dusty disc wind. Forbidden lines are formed both in the disc wind and in the jet, the axis of which is oriented along PA$=61\pm 3$ degrees. The jet mass-loss rate is $>5 \times 10^{-10}$ M$_\odot$/yr, what is abnormally large for a star with a mass of $<0.3$ M$_\odot.$ Apparently, the disc wind of ZZ Tau IRS is not axially symmetric, probably due to the azimuthal asymmetry of the protoplanetary disc found earlier from ALMA observations.