Kraus, S., Ireland, M. J., Sitko, M. L., Monnier, J. D., Calvet, N., Espaillat, C., Grady, C. A., Harries, T. J., Hönig, S. F., Swearingen, J. R., Werren, C., and Wilner, D. J. 2013. "Exploring the signatures of planet formation with multi-wavelength interferometry." European Planetary Science Congress 2013, 8 796.
Pre-transitional disks are protoplanetary disks with a gapped disk structure, potentially indicating the presence of young planets in these systems. In this contribution, we present VLTI and Keck near- and mid-infrared interferometric observations that allow us to explore the structure of these objects and their gap- opening mechanism. For instance, our observations on V1247 Orionis revealed a narrow, optically-thick inner-disk component (located at 0.2 AU from the star)that is separated from the optically thick outer disk (radii > 46 AU), providing unambiguous evidence for the existence of a gap in this pre-transitional disk. Surprisingly, we find that the gap region is filled with significant amounts of optically thin material with a carbon-dominated dust mineralogy. The presence of this optically thin gap material cannot be deduce solely from the spectral energy distribution, yet it is the dominant contributor at mid-infrared wavelengths. Further more, using Keck/NIRC2 aperture masking observations we detect asymmetries in the brightness distribution within the gap region, indicating an inhomogeneous distribution of the gap material. We interpret this as strong evidence for the presence of complex density structures, possibly reflecting the dynamical interaction of the disk material with the sub-stellar mass bodies that are responsible for the gap clearing.
