Paper detail

Detection of a sub-arcsecond dust shell around the Wolf-Rayet star WR 112

A lunar occultation event of the Wolf-Rayet star WR 112 (type WC9) has been observed simultaneously from two independent telescopes at lambda = 2.2microns, allowing us to investigate this source with an angular resolution of approx 0.003 arc-seconds. We have detected a circumstellar dust envelope whose brightness distribution can be approximately fitted by a gaussian with a FWHM of approx 0.06 arc-seconds (approx 10^15 cm). We present and discuss the reconstructed brightness profile, which shows an asymmetry in the radial dust distribution. The derived dust grain temperature at the inner dust zone of approx 1150 K is consistent with available model calculations. There is no signature of the central star from our observations, providing a direct confirmation that the circumstellar shell emission dominates over the photospheric emission at 2.2microns as predicted by fits to the spectral energy distribution. Further lunar occultation observations at different position angles are essential to reconstruct the 2--D image of the dust shell around WR 112. The current series of lunar occultations of WR 112 will continue to the end of 1999 and will be visible for all equatorial and southern latitude observatories.