Physics Commons^™

We acquired near-infrared spectra of the Oort cloud comet C/2012 F6 (Lemmon) at three different heliocentric distances (R h) during the comet's 2013 perihelion passage, providing a comprehensive measure of the outgassing behavior of parent volatiles and cosmogonic indicators. Our observations were performed pre-perihelion at R h = 1.2 AU with CRIRES (on 2013 February 2 and 4), and post-perihelion at R h = 0.75 AU with CSHELL (on March 31 and April 1) and R h = 1.74 AU with NIRSPEC (on June 20). We detected 10 volatile species (H2O, OH* prompt emission, C2H6, CH3OH, H2CO, HCN, CO, CH4, …

T Tauri stars are low mass young stars that may serve as analogs to the early solar system. Observations of organic molecules in the protoplanetary disks surrounding T Tauri stars are important for characterizing the chemical and physical processes that lead to planet formation. Searches for undetected molecules, particularly in the inner, planet forming regions of these disks are important for testing protoplanetary disk chemical models and for understanding the evolution of volatiles through the star and planet formation process. We used NIRSPEC on Keck 2 to perform a high resolution (λ/Δλ ~ 25,000) L-band survey of T Tauri star …

We present high-resolution, near-infrared spectro-astrometric (SA) data for the T Tauri star DR Tau using NIRSPEC at the Keck II telescope. Spectro-astrometry obtains sub-seeing spatial information from emission lines originating in a non-point source object, such as a circumstellar disk. We report the first detection of water SA signatures in a protoplanetary disk. Three water features near 3 μm were averaged together to produce the total signal analyzed. Using a disk model, we constrained the position angle of the disk (~140°), the inclination of the disk (~13°), and the emitting region of the emission lines (~0.056-0.38 AU).