Rotation and accretion of very low mass objects in the SigmaOri cluster

dc.creatorScholz, Alexander
dc.creatorEisloeffel, Jochen
dc.date2004-04-01
dc.date.accessioned2026-07-07T02:12:47Z
dc.date.available2026-07-07T02:12:47Z
dc.descriptionWe report on two photometric monitoring campaigns of Very Low Mass (VLM) objects in the young open cluster around SigmaOrionis. Our targets were pre-selected with multi-filter photometry in a field of 0.36 sqdeg. For 23 of these objects, spanning a mass range from 0.03 to 0.7 MS, we detect periodic variability. Of these, 16 exhibit low-level variability, with amplitudes of less than 0.2 mag in the I-band, which is mostly well-approximated by a sine wave. These periodicities are probably caused by photospheric spots co-rotating with the objects. In contrast, the remaining variable targets show high-level variability with amplitudes ranging from 0.25 to 1.1 mag, consisting of a periodic light variation onto which short-term fluctuations are superimposed. This variability pattern is very similar to the photometric behaviour of solar-mass, classical T Tauri stars. Low-resolution spectra of a few of these objects reveal strong Halpha and Ca-triplet emission, indicative of ongoing accretion processes. This suggests that 5-7% of our targets still possess a circumstellar disk. In combination with previous results for younger objects, this translates into a disk lifetime of 3-4 Myr, significantly shorter than for solar mass stars. The highly variable objects rotate on average slower than the low-amplitude variables, which is expected in terms of a disk-locking scenario. There is a trend towards faster rotation with decreasing mass, which might be caused by shortening of the disk lifetimes or attenuation of magnetic fields.
dc.description19 pages, 14 figures, A&A, in press
dc.identifierhttps://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0404014
dc.identifierhttp://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0404014
dc.identifierAstron.Astrophys. 419 (2004) 249-267
dc.identifierdoi:10.1051/0004-6361:20034022
dc.identifier.urihttp://salesiana.dossiersoluciones.com/handle/123456789/7576
dc.subjectAstrophysics
dc.titleRotation and accretion of very low mass objects in the SigmaOri cluster
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