DR Tau VLT/SPHERE and LBTI/LMIRCam maps

We further detected an arc-like structure north of the star. Finally a bright, compact and elongated structure was detected at separation of 303+/-10 mas and position angle 21.2+/-3.7 degrees, just at the root of the north-east spiral arm. Since this feature is visible both in polarized light and in total intensity and has a flat spectrum it is likely caused by stellar light scattered by dust.

The two spiral arms are at different separation from the star, have very different pitch angles, and are separated by an apparent discontinuity, suggesting they might have a different origin. The very open southern spiral arm might be caused by infalling material from late encounters with cloudlets into the formation environment of the star itself. The compact feature could be caused by interaction with a planet in formation still embedded in its dust envelope and it could be responsible for launching the north-east spiral.

We estimate a mass of the putative embedded object of the order of few M Jup .