The 3-D kinematics of water masers around the semiregular variable RT Virginis

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dc.creatorImai, Hiroshi
dc.creatorShibata, Katsunori M.
dc.creatorMarvel, Kevin B.
dc.creatorDiamond, Philip J.
dc.creatorSasao, Tetsuo
dc.creatorMiyoshi, Makoto
dc.creatorInoue, Makoto
dc.creatorMigenes, Victor
dc.creatorMurata, Yasuhiro
dc.date2003-02-19
dc.date.accessioned2026-07-07T10:26:51Z
dc.date.available2026-07-07T10:26:51Z
dc.descriptionWe report observations of water masers around the semiregular variable RT Virginis (RT Vir), which have been made with the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) at five epochs, each separated by three weeks of time. We detected about 60 maser features at each epoch. Overall, 61 features, detected at least twice, were tracked by their radial velocities and proper motions. The 3-D maser kinematics exhibited a circumstellar envelope that is expanding roughly spherically with a velocity of about 8 km/s. Asymmetries in both the spatial and velocity distributions of the maser features were found in the envelope, but less significant than that found in other semiregular variables. Systematic radial-velocity drifts of individual maser features were found with amplitudes of <= 2 km/s/yr. For one maser feature, we found a quadratic position shift with time along a straight line on the sky. This apparent motion indicates an acceleration with an amplitude of 33 km/s/yr, implying the passage of a shock wave driven by the stellar pulsation of RT Vir. The acceleration motion is likely seen only on the sky plane because of a large velocity gradient formed in the accelerating maser region. We estimated the distance to RT Vir to be about 220 pc on the basis of both the statistical parallax and model-fitting methods for the maser kinematics.
dc.description18 pages, 8 figures. Accepted to appear in the Astrophysical Journal
dc.identifierhttps://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0302389
dc.identifierhttp://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0302389
dc.identifierAstrophys.J.590:460-472,2003
dc.identifierdoi:10.1086/374887
dc.identifier.urihttp://salesiana.dossiersoluciones.com/handle/123456789/176982
dc.subjectAstrophysics
dc.titleThe 3-D kinematics of water masers around the semiregular variable RT Virginis
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