The Transitional Disks Associated With Herbig Stars

Abstract

As part of the Strategic Exploration of Exoplanets and Disks with Subaru YSO survey, we have surveyed a number of Herbig B-F stars mainly at H-band using Polarimetric Differential Imaging + Angular differential imaging. Historically, Herbig stars have been sorted by the shape of the IR SEDs into those which can be fit by power laws over 1-200 micrometers (Meeus et al. 2001, group II), and those which can be interpreted as a power law + a blackbody component (Meeus group I) or as transitional or pre-transitional disks (Maaskant et al. 2013). Meeus group II disks, when imaged with HiCIAO show featureless disks with depolarization along the projection of the disk semi-minor axis (Kusakabe et al. 2012). This is what we had expected to see for the Meeus group I disks, except for the addition of wide gaps or central cavities. Instead we find wild diversity, suggesting that transitional disks are highly perturbed compared to Meeus group II disks. To date, similar structure continues to be observed as higher Strehl ratio imagery becomes available.