[en] Attempts are made not only to show damage, which leads to remaining wall thicknesses below 80%, with certainty, but also to obtain information on the remaining wall thickness from the indications. The aim of the project is to transfer laboratory results and other available experience to appropriate tasks from industrial practice. The previously developed test techniques are to be tried, adapted to occurring situations and, if necessary, improved. By taking part in a ring experiment, there is a comparison of the performance of test methods, which were developed by other research institutions. (orig./IHOE)

[en] We analyze spatially resolved spectroscopic observations of the Eta Carinae binary system obtained with the Hubble Space Telescope/STIS. Eta Car is enshrouded by the dusty Homunculus nebula, which scatters light emitted by the central binary and provides a unique opportunity to study a massive binary system from different vantage points. We investigate the latitudinal and azimuthal dependence of Hα line profiles caused by the presence of a wind-wind collision (WWC) cavity created by the companion star. Using two-dimensional radiative transfer models, we find that the wind cavity can qualitatively explain the observed line profiles around apastron. Regions of the Homunculus which scatter light that propagated through the WWC cavity show weaker or no Hα absorption. Regions scattering light that propagated through a significant portion of the primary wind show stronger P Cygni absorption. Our models overestimate the Hα absorption formed in the primary wind, which we attribute to photoionization by the companion, not presently included in the models. We can qualitatively explain the latitudinal changes that occur during periastron, shedding light on the nature of Eta Car's spectroscopic events. Our models support the idea that during the brief period of time around periastron when the primary wind flows unimpeded toward the observer, Hα absorption occurs in directions toward the central object and Homunculus SE pole, but not toward equatorial regions close to the Weigelt blobs. We suggest that observed latitudinal and azimuthal variations are dominated by the companion star via the WWC cavity, rather than by rapid rotation of the primary star.

[en] We analyze interferometric measurements of the luminous blue variable Eta Carinae with the goal of constraining the rotational velocity of the primary star and probing the influence of the companion. Using two-dimensional radiative transfer models of latitude-dependent stellar winds, we find that prolate-wind models with a ratio of the rotational velocity (v_rot) to the critical velocity (v_crit) of W = 0.77-0.92, inclination angle of i = 60⁰-90⁰, and position angle (P.A.) =108⁰-142⁰ reproduce simultaneously K-band continuum visibilities from VLTI/VINCI and closure phase measurements from VLTI/AMBER. Interestingly, oblate models with W = 0.73-0.90 and i = 80⁰-90⁰ produce similar fits to the interferometric data, but require P.A. =210⁰-230⁰. Therefore, both prolate and oblate models suggest that the rotation axis of the primary star is not aligned with the Homunculus polar axis. We also compute radiative transfer models of the primary star allowing for the presence of a cavity and dense wind-wind interaction region created by the companion star. We find that the wind-wind interaction has a significant effect on the K-band image mainly via free-free emission from the compressed walls and, for reasonable model parameters, can reproduce the VLTI/VINCI visibilities taken at φ_vb03 = 0.92-0.93. We conclude that the density structure of the primary wind can be sufficiently disturbed by the companion, thus mimicking the effects of fast rotation in the interferometric observables. Therefore, fast rotation may not be the only explanation for the interferometric observations. Intense temporal monitoring and three-dimensional modeling are needed to resolve these issues.

[en] Warm gas and dust surround the innermost regions of active galactic nuclei (AGN). They provide the material for accretion onto the super-massive black hole and they are held responsible for the orientation-dependent obscuration of the central engine. The AGN-heated dust distributions turn out to be very compact with sizes on scales of about a parsec in the mid-infrared. Only infrared interferometry currently provides the necessary angular resolution to directly study the physical properties of this dust. Size estimates for the dust distributions derived from interferometric observations can be used to construct a size-luminosity relation for the dust distributions. The large scatter about this relation suggests significant differences between the dust tori in the individual galaxies, even for nuclei of the same class of objects and with similar luminosities. This questions the simple picture of the same dusty doughnut in all AGN. The Circinus galaxy is the closest Seyfert 2 galaxy. Because its mid-infrared emission is well resolved interferometrically, it is a prime target for detailed studies of its nuclear dust distribution. An extensive new interferometric data set was obtained for this galaxy. It shows that the dust emission comes from a very dense, disk-like structure which is surrounded by a geometrically thick, similarly warm dust distribution as well as significant amounts of warm dust within the ionisation cone.

[en] With mid-IR and near-IR long-baseline interferometers, we are now mapping the radial distribution of the dusty accreting material in AGNs at sub-pc scales. We currently focus on Type 1 AGNs, where the innermost region is unobscured and its intrinsic structure can be studied directly. As a first systematic study of Type 1s, we obtained mid-/near-IR data for small samples over ∼3-4 orders of magnitudes in UV luminosity L of the central engine. Here we effectively trace the structure by observing dust grains that are radiatively heated by the central engine. Consistent with a naive expectation for such dust grains, the dust sublimation radius R_in is in fact empirically known to be scaling with L^1/2 from the near-IR reverberation measurements, and this is also supported by our near-IR interferometry. Utilizing this empirical relationship, we normalize the radial extent by R_in and eliminate the simple L^1/2 scaling for a direct comparison over the samples. We then find that, in the mid-IR, the overall size in units of R_in seems to become more compact in higher luminosity sources. More specifically, the mid-IR brightness distribution is rather well described by a power-law, and this power-law becomes steeper in higher luminosity objects. The near-IR flux does not seem to be a simple inward extrapolation of the mid-IR power-law component toward shorter wavelengths, but it rather comes from a little distinct brightness concentration at the inner rim region of the dust distribution. Its structure is not well constrained yet, but there is tentative evidence that this inner near-IR-emitting structure has a steeper radial distribution in jet-launching objects. All these should be scrutinized with further observations.

[en] High-mass multiples might form via fragmentation of self-gravitational disks or alternative scenarios such as disk-assisted capture. However, only a few observational constraints exist on the architecture and disk structure of high-mass protobinaries and their accretion properties. Here, we report the discovery of a close (57.9 ± 0.2 mas = 170 au) high-mass protobinary, IRAS17216-3801, where our VLTI/GRAVITY+AMBER near-infrared interferometry allows us to image the circumstellar disks around the individual components with ∼3 mas resolution. We estimate the component masses to ∼20 and ∼18 M _⊙ and find that the radial intensity profiles can be reproduced with an irradiated disk model, where the inner regions are excavated of dust, likely tracing the dust sublimation region in these disks. The circumstellar disks are strongly misaligned with respect to the binary separation vector, which indicates that the tidal forces did not have time to realign the disks, pointing toward a young dynamical age of the system. We constrain the distribution of the Br γ and CO-emitting gas using VLTI/GRAVITY spectro-interferometry and VLT/CRIRES spectro-astrometry and find that the secondary is accreting at a higher rate than the primary. VLT/NACO imaging shows L ′-band emission on (3–4)× larger scales than the binary separation, matching the expected dynamical truncation radius for the circumbinary disk. The IRAS17216-3801 system is ∼3× more massive and ∼5× more compact than other high-mass multiplies imaged at infrared wavelength and the first high-mass protobinary system where circumstellar and circumbinary dust disks could be spatially resolved. This opens exciting new opportunities for studying star–disk interactions and the role of multiplicity in high-mass star formation.

[en] Dust around active galactic nuclei (AGNs) is distributed over a wide range of spatial scales and can be observed in the infrared (IR). It is generally assumed that the distribution on parsec scales forms a geometrically and optically thick entity in the equatorial plane around the accretion disk and broad-line region—dubbed ^dust torus^—that emits the bulk of the subarcsecond-scale IR emission and gives rise to orientation-dependent obscuration. However, recent IR interferometry studies with unprecedented position angle (P.A.) and baseline coverage on these small scales in two obscured (type 2) AGNs have revealed that the majority of the mid-IR emission in these objects is elongated in the polar direction. These observations are difficult to reconcile with the standard interpretation that most of the parsec-scale mid-IR emission in AGNs originate from the torus and challenges the justification of using simple torus models to model the broadband IR emission. Here, we report detailed interferometry observations of the unobscured (type 1) AGN in NGC 3783 that allow us to constrain the size, elongation, and direction of the mid-IR emission with high accuracy. The mid-IR emission is characterized by a strong elongation toward position angle P.A. –52°, closely aligned with the polar axis (P.A. –45°). We determine half-light radii along the major and minor axes at 12.5 μm of (20.0 ± 3.0) mas × (6.7 ± 1.0) mas or (4.23 ± 0.63) pc × (1.42 ± 0.21) pc, which corresponds to intrinsically scaled sizes of (69.4 ± 10.8) r_in × (23.3 ± 3.5) r_in for the inner dust radius of r_in = 0.061 pc as inferred from near-IR reverberation mapping. This implies an axis ratio of 3:1, with about 60%-90% of the 8-13 μm emission associated with the polar-elongated component. It is quite likely that the hot-dust emission as recently resolved by near-IR interferometry is misaligned with the mid-IR emitting source, which also finds a correspondence in the two distinct 3-5 μm and 20 μm bumps seen in the high angular resolution spectral energy distribution (SED). Based on this SED, we determine covering factors for the hot and warm dust components of C_hot= 0.42^+0.42_-0.21 and C_warm= 0.92^+0.92_-0.46, respectively. We conclude that these observations support a scenario where the majority of the mid-IR emission in Seyfert AGNs originate from a dusty wind in the polar region of the AGN.