Protostars and Planets V 2005 8209.

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POLARIMETRIC DIFFERENTIAL IMAGING OF THE CLASS I PROTOSTAR ELIAS 2–29 WITH NACO/VLT. N.
Huélamo, European Southern Observatory, Alonso de Cordova 3107, Santiago, Chile, (nhuelamo@eso.org), W. Brandner, S. Wolf,
T. Khanzadyan, Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie, Heidelberg, Königstuhl 17, D-69117, Germany.

We present near-IR Adaptive Optics (AO) dual polarimet-

ric observations of Elias 2–29, a Class I protostar in the Rho
Ophiuchi star forming region. The main goal of these observa-
tions is to analyze the close environment of Elias 2–29 in order N ISAAC HK image
to derive the properties of its circumstellar disk and envelope.
Elias 2–29 is known to be surrounded by circumstellar
material (e.g. Boogert et al. 2000). Its spectral energy distri-
bution (SED) has been studied in detail and it can be explained E
by the presence of a disk and an envelope. Mid-IR and radio
observations suggest a disk inclination closer to face-on (

60° Boogert et al. 2002). Higher spatial resolution observa-
tions of Elias 2–29 show diffuse emission around the target
(Brandner et al. 2000). In spite of the brightness of the central
object, the near-IR images reveal a bipolar reflection nebula
and a dust lane in the NE-SW direction. This result is consis-
tent with a high inclination of the system (see Figure 1).
We have studied more in detail the vicinity of Elias 2–
29 through diffraction-limited observations. The observations
were obtained at the Very Large Telescope (VLT/Paranal) com-
bining AO and near-IR dual-imaging polarimetry techniques.
The data were collected with the Nasmyth Adaptive Optics
System (NAOS) and the infrared detector CONICA. NAOS
is equipped with an infrared wavefront sensor (WFS) that al-
lows observations of young stellar objects deeply embedded
in their parental clouds. Elias 2–29 is a very bright object in
the near-IR (
  ), so we use it as a reference star with
the IR WFS. The observations were performed with the Wol-
laston prism and different H- and K-band filters. We acquired
Figure 1: ISAAC/VLT H & K combined image. The object
images with short and long exposure times in order to analyze
is surrounded by diffuse emission from cimcumstellar matter.
the inner and outer regions around Elias 2–29, respectively.
A darker area (dust lane) can be distinguished in the NE-SW
We took exposures at four different rotator angles (0, 45, 90
direction suggesting the presence of a circumstellar disk
and 135) and build the Stokes vectors (Q&U) combining the
information of the different datasets.
The K-band Q- and U-intensity images of Elias 2–29 are shows symmetric emission features located SE and NW from
displayed in Figure 2. We detect polarized light down to 1.5 ” the central source, that is, perpendicular to the dust lane de-
from the central source, that is, down to 210 AU assuming a tected in the NACO images. Therefore, NACO, ISAAC and

(

distance of 140 pc to the source. The total polarized signal
¾   ¾ ) is shown in the right panel of the figure.
We clearly detect a dark lane in the NE–SW direction at an
inclination of 30° (as in the ISAAC image). The highest
polarized signal is located at both sides of the dark lane and
perpendicular to it. The polarized emission is very symmetric
in the vicinity of the source (radius
0.5 ”). At bigger radii,
the polarized signal shows a ’spiral-like’ structure being more
diffuse and extended in the SE direction and more compact
and brighter in the NW direction.
Khanzadyan et al. (2004) have performed an unbiased
search for molecular hydrogen emission (H¾ 1-0 S(1), 2.12m)
in the Rho Oph star forming region. The main goal of their
study was to detect shock-excited knots and jets from young
stellar objects. Elias 2–29 was among their observed targets
and their deep H¾ image is displayed in Figure 3. This figure
NTT images suggest a high inclination of the system.
Currently, we are comparing the polarized emission of
Elias 2–29 with models by Wolf et al. (2003). The result will
allow to put constraints on different properties of the system.
References
Boogert, A.C.A., Tielens, A.G.G.M., Ceccarelli, C. et al.,
2000, A&A 360, 683
Boogert, A.C.A., Hogerheijde, M.R., Ceccarelli, C. et al.,
2002, ApJ 570, 708
Brandner, W., Sheppard, S., Zinnecker, H. et al., 2000,
A&A 364, L13
Khanzadyan, T., Gredel, R., Smith, M. D., Stanke, T.,,2004,
A&A 426, 171
Wolf, S., Padgett, D., Stapelfeldt, K. R., 2003, ApJ 588,
373
Protostars and Planets V 2005 8209.pdf

Figure 2: Q & U NACO K-band images of Elias 2–29. North is Up and East is left. We displayed the Q- and U-intensity images
obtained with individual exposures of 20 seconds. The central source was saturated in order to obtain a better signal in the outer
parts of the image. The polarization intensity is displayed in the right panel. A dark lane is visible in the NE-SW direction. Most of
the polarized emission is detected in the perpendicular direction (NW-SE). It is remarkable the presence of two compact emission
features (’spiral-like’ structures) at a radius larger than 0.5 ”.

Figure 3: Deep H¾ (2.12 m) image of Elias 2–29 obtained

with SOFI at the NTT/ESO. The image shows H¾ emis-
sion features at both sides of the central source. The line
connecting these two emission features is at an angle of
60°measured fron North to West, that is, perpendicular to the
dark lane observed in the NACO images.