A Survey of Circumstellar Disks and Young Stars with Adaptive Optics

Close博士和他的合作者将研究孤立的黑云和星团环境中年轻恒星周围的星周盘。他们将使用夏威夷大学开发的新型自适应光学系统进行观测，以获得衍射有限的红外图像。他们的观测项目包括各种各样的年轻恒星物体，以对一系列环境进行采样：金牛座- auriga黑云中的金牛座T星，大质量年轻的赫比格Ae/Be星，以及附近的OB星群。对磁盘的观测（估计大约为50%）将允许确定磁盘的年龄、质量和吸积率。他们还将对散射光盘图像进行建模，以限制尘埃的性质。他们的最终目标是使用直接成像和建模相结合的方法来阐明恒星及其行星系统从分子云的尘埃核心中凝聚的过程。

Close, Laird University of Hawaii Manoa AST 97-31576 Dr. Close and co-PI's will study the circumstellar disks around young stars in isolated dark clouds and cluster environments. They will use the new adaptive optics system developed at the University of Hawaii for their observations, achieving diffraction-limited images in the infrared. Their observational program includes a variety of young stellar objects to sample a range of environments : T Tauri stars in the Taurus-Auriga dark cloud, massive young Herbig Ae/Be stars, and nearby OB associations. Observations that detect disks (estimated to be roughly 50%) will permit determinations of the disk age, mass, and accretion rates. They will also model the scattered light disk images to place constraints on the nature of the dust. Their ultimate goal is to use a combination of direct imaging followed by modeling to elucidate the processes by which stars and their planetary systems condense out of the dusty cores of molecular clouds.