Oral Presentation Astronomical Society of Australia Annual Scientific Meeting including HWWS 2013

The circumstellar environment of the Mira Variable TX Cam, as revealed by long-term high-resolution interferometric observations of SiO masers (#64)

Ioannis Gonidakis 1 , Phil Diamond 2 , Athol Kemball 3
  1. CSIRO, Epping, NSW, Australia
  2. SKA Telescope, Lower Withington, Macclesfield, UK
  3. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, USA

We present the results from the long-term monitoring campaign of the SiO masers toward TX Cam. Observations of the target source were conducted in bi-weekly or monthly intervals for five years with the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA), covering three complete stellar cycles.  The highlight of our project is the production of a movie, showing the evolution of the masers in the extended atmosphere of the star and revealing the properties of this complex area. Peculiar kinematics of several features in our movie suggest that they can be attributed to the existence of shock waves permeating the masering region. The morphology, kinematics and variability of the SiO masers are studied in detail and compared with other observations and theoretical models.