Hints of a rotating spiral structure in the innermost regions around IRC +10216.

ABSTRACT: The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) is allowing us to study the innermost regions of the circumstellar envelopes of evolved stars with un-precedented precision and sensitivity. Key processes in the ejection of matter and dust from these objects occur in their inner zones. In this work, we present sub-arcsecond interferometric maps of transitions of metal-bearing molecules towards the prototypical C-rich evolved star IRC +10216. While Al-bearing molecules seem to be present as a roughly spherical shell, the molecular emission from the salts NaCl and KCl presents an elongation in the inner regions, with a central minimum. In order to accurately analyze the emission from the NaCl rotational lines, we present new calculations of the collisional rates for this molecule based

SUBMITTER: Quintana-Lacaci G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4797422 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature