A disc in the heart of the Ant nebula

Abstract

We present the discovery of a silicate disc at the centre of the planetary nebula Mz3 (the Ant). The nebula was observed with MIDI on the Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI). The visibilities obtained at different orientations clearly indicate the presence of a dusty, nearly edge-on disc in the heart of the nebula. An amorphous silicate absorption feature is clearly seen in our mid-IR spectrum and visibility curves. We used radiative transfer Monte Carlo simulations to constrain the geometrical and physical parameters of the disc. We derive an inner radius of 9 AU (~6mas assuming D=1.4kpc). This disc is perpendicular to, but a factor of 10^{3} smaller than the optical bipolar outflow.