Modeling Spitzer Observations of VV Ser. II. An Extended Quantum‐heated Nebula and a Disk Shadow

Abstract

We present mid-infrared Spitzer IRAC and MIPS images of the UX Orionis star VV Ser and the surrounding cloud. The 5.6-70 μm images show bright, localized, and nebulous emission extended over 4' centered on VV Ser. This nebulosity is due to transiently heated grains excited by UV photons emitted by VV Ser. Imprinted on the nebulosity is a wedge-shaped dark band, centered on the star. We interpret this as the shadow cast by the inner regions of a near-edge-on disk, allowing the PAHs to be excited only outside of this shadow. We extend an axisymmetric radiative transfer model of the VV Ser disk described in a companion paper to include quantum-heated PAH molecules and very small grains (VSGs) in the thermal cooling approximation. The presence of a disk shadow strongly constrains the inclination as well as the position angle of the disk. The nebulosity at 5.6-8.0 μm and the 2175 Å absorption feature seen in an archival spectrum from the IUE can be fit using only PAHs, consistent with the main carrier of the 2175 Å feature being due to the graphite-like structure of the PAHs. The PAH component is found to be relatively smoothly distributed in the cloud, while the population of VSGs emitting at 20-70 μm is strongly concentrated ~50'' to the southeast of VV Ser. Depending on the adopted PAH opacity, the abundance of PAHs in the surrounding cloud is constrained to 5%+/-2% of the total dust mass. Although relatively rare, quantum-heated nebulosities surrounding single, well-defined stars are well-suited for gaining unique insights into the physics of very small particles in molecular clouds.