High angular resolution structures in the dust shell surrounding WR 104 from lunar occultation observations at 2.2 µm

Abstract

A rare event of lunar occultation of a Wolf-Rayet star (WRI04) in the near IR K-band (2.2 micron) is reported. AnalYSis of the occultation light curve shows a fully resolved dust envelope departing significantly from a uniform disk profile. We report three major peaks in the derived brightness profile. Our results of the dust structure are in good agreement with contemporaneous aperture masking interferometry carried out at the Keck 110m telescope which shows a pinwheel dust structure around WR104.