A surprisingly large asymmetric ejection from Mira A

Context. Stars with masses between roughly 1 and 8 M⊙ end their lives on the asymptotic giant branch (AGB), when intense mass loss takes place, with major consequences for the chemical evolution of the universe. The mechanism responsible for the outflows is generally accepted to be radiation pressure acting on dust grains that form in the dense extended atmospheres of AGB stars. Dust formation is enabled, or at least dramatically enhanced, by the action of convection and stellar pulsations. The complex physics underlying convection, stellar pulsations, and dust nucleation precludes predicting AGB mass loss from first principles. Aims. Our aim was to characterize the recent mass ejections of the AGB star Mira A using observations of the inner envelope. In particular, we studied two lobes observed to be expanding away from Mira A to obtain empirical insights into the mass-ejection process. Methods. We investigated the evolution of the lobes using images of polarized light obtained at six epochs using the Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet REsearch (SPHERE) on the Very Large Telescope and of molecular emission at two epochs obtained with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). Six lines of SO2 were used to investigate the excitation temperature and column density of SO2 in the lobes. We used the 13CO J = 3-2 line and radiative transfer models to constrain the column density of the gas, which allowed us to infer the abundances of SO, SO2, AlO, AlF, and PO in the lobes. Results. While dust seems confined almost exclusively to the edges of the lobes, gas fills the lobes and displays higher densities than expected at the observed radial distances based on the large-scale mass-loss rate of Mira A, with a total gas mass in the lobes of ∼2 × 10−5 M⊙. We find the expansion of the lobes to be consistent with both a constant velocity (ejection time in 2010 or 2011) or a decelerating expansion (ejection time in 2012). If ejection events with a similar magnitude happen periodically, we derive periods between 50 and 200 years to account for the mass-loss rate of Mira A. This periodicity is very uncertain because of the complexity of the circumstellar environment that hampers accurate determinations of the mass-loss rate. We find abundances in the lobes of ∼1.5 × 10−6 and ∼2.5 × 10−6 for SO and SO2, respectively, when accounting for radiative transfer effects and of 2 × 10−10, 6.5 × 10−10, and 4 × 10−7 for AlO, AlF, and PO assuming LTE and optically thin emission. The strong variation in brightness of the different features identified in the polarized-light images is puzzling. We suggest that an asymmetric stellar radiation field preferentially illuminates specific regions of the circumstellar envelope at a given time, producing a lighthouse-like effect.