Smooth Inner Emission in the Herbig Ae Disks HD 163296 and HD 190073

The processes occurring within the inner few astronomical units of proto-planetary disks regulate accretion and planet migration while also affecting the outer planet-forming regions via shadowing. Combining new measurements from CHARA with archival VLTI and Keck data, we confirm previous results suggesting that significant near-infrared emission originates from within the supposed dust destruction radius of this class of object. Our geometrical model fits indicate that the inner-disks of both of these objects exhibit a remarkably smooth, nearly Gaussian emission profile, with no significant sign of a sharp edge expected from a sublimation front. We further find that the H- and K-band sizes of these disks are the same within (3±3) % for HD 163296 and (6±10) % for HD 190073, indicating a common origin of emission. The origin of this "inner emission" remains a mystery that we hope to solve with the next generation of imaging combiners at CHARA, MIRC-X and MYSTIC.