Occultation of the T Tauri Star RW Aurigae A by its Tidally Disrupted Disk

摘要: RW Aur A is a classical T Tauri star, believed to have undergone reconfiguration of its circumstellar environment as consequence recent flyby stellar companion, B. This interaction stripped away part the disk A, leaving tidally disrupted arm and short truncated disk. We present photometric observations system from Kilodegree Extremely Little Telescope survey showing long deep dimming that occurred 2010 September until 2011 March. The has depth ~2 mag, duration ~180 days, was confirmed by archival American Association Variable Star Observers. suggest this event result portion occulting specifically fragment arm. calculated transverse linear velocity occulter in excellent agreement with measured relative radial Using simple kinematic geometric arguments, we show cannot be feature disk, consider discount other hypotheses. also place constraints on thickness semimajor axis occulted star.