High-angular-resolution ALMA imaging of the inhomogeneous dynamical atmosphere of the asymptotic giant branch star W Hya

TL;DR

This study uses high-resolution ALMA imaging to explore the complex atmosphere and wind dynamics of the AGB star W Hya, revealing inhomogeneous molecular distributions, dust formation processes, and shock-induced chemistry.

Contribution

First high-angular-resolution ALMA imaging of W Hya's atmosphere, detailing molecular inhomogeneities, dust formation, and dynamic gas motions at unprecedented spatial scales.

Findings

Resolved stellar disk and extended atmosphere with clumpy structures.

Detected 57 molecular lines indicating inhomogeneous chemistry.

Observed both infall and outflow motions within the star's atmosphere.

Abstract

We present high-angular-resolution imaging of the asymptotic giant branch star W Hya with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) to probe the dynamics and chemistry in the atmosphere and inner wind. W Hya was observed with the longest baselines of ALMA at 250-268 GHz with an angular resolution of ~17x20 mas. ALMA's high angular resolution allowed us to resolve the stellar disk of W Hya, along with clumpy, irregularly shaped emission extending to ~100 mas: plume in the north-northwest, a tail in the south-southwest, and the extended atmosphere elongated in the east-northeast--west-southwest direction, with semimajor and semiminor axes of ~70 and 40 mas (~3.4 and 1.9 Rstar), respectively. We identified 57 lines, which include SiO, H2O, SO2, SO, HCN, AlO, AlOH, TiO, TiO2, OH, and some of their isotopologues. The molecular line images show spatially inhomogeneous molecular formation. Our ALMA data taken at phase 0.53 (minimum light) indicate global, accelerating infall within ~75 mas (3.6 Rstar) but also outflow at up to ~10 km/s in deeper layers. While 38 of the detected lines appear in absorption against the continuum stellar disk as expected, we detect nonthermal emission on top of the continuum over the stellar disk in 19 lines of SiO, H2O, SO2, and AlO. The emission of SiO, AlO, TiO, TiO2, SO, and SO2 coincides well with the clumpy dust cloud distribution obtained from contemporaneous visible polarimetric imaging in addition to H2O reported in our previous work. This lends support to the idea that SiO, H2O, and AlO are directly involved in grain nucleation. The overlap of SO/SO2 (possibly also TiO/TiO2) with the dust clouds suggests the formation of these molecules and dust behind shocks induced by pulsation and/or convection. We detect HCN emission close to the star, down to ~30 mas (~1.4 Rstar), which is consistent with shock-induced chemistry.