Research column

博士後研究員 田雍與指導教授發現暗物質不足的證據

B[e] objects are hot emission-line stars with dusty envelope. We study a sample of eight B[e] stars with uncertain evolutionary status to shed light on the origin of their circumstellar dust. Methods. We performed a diagnostic analysis on the spectral energy distribution beyond infrared wavelengths, and conducted a census of neighboring region of each target to ascertain its evolutionary status. In comparison to pre-main sequence Herbig stars, these B[e] stars show equally substantial excess emission in the near-infrared, indicative of existence of warm dust, but much reduced excess at longer wavelengths, so the dusty envelopes should be compact in size. Isolation from star-forming regions excludes the possib.

Although the majority of Centaurs are thought to have originated in the scattered disk, with the high-inclination members coming from the Oort cloud, the origin of the high-inclination component of trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) remains uncertain. We report the discovery of a retrograde TNO, which we nickname "Niku," detected by the Pan-STARRS 1 Outer Solar System Survey. Our numerical integrations show that the orbital dynamics of Niku are very similar to that of 2008 KV42 (Drac), with a half-life of ~500 Myr. Comparing similar high-inclination TNOs and Centaurs (q > 10 au, a < 100 au, and i > 60°), we find that these objects exhibit a surprising clustering of ascending node, and occupy a common orbital plane. This orbital configuration has high statistical significance: 3.8-σ. An unknown mechanism is required to explain the observed clustering. This discovery may provide a pathway to investigating a possible reservoir of high-inclination objects.