Young Stars and their Variability with LSST
Abstract
Young stars exhibit short-term photometric variability caused by mass accretion events from circumstellar disks, the presence of dusty warps within the inner disks, starspots that rotate across the stellar surfaces, and flares. Long-term variability also occurs owing to starspot longevity and cycles, and from changes in stellar angular momenta and activity as the stars age. We propose to observe the Carina star-forming region in different bands with a cadence of 30 minutes every night for one week per year to clarify the nature of both the short-term and long-term variability of the thousands of young stars in this region. By obtaining well-sampled multicolor lightcurves of this dense young cluster, LSST would acquire the first statistically significant data on how these objects vary on both short and long timescales. This information will allow us to relate the observed variability to stellar properties such as mass, age, binarity, and to environmental properties such as location within or exterior to the H II region, and to the presence or absence of a circumstellar disk.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1812.03135,
title = {Young Stars and their Variability with LSST},
author = {Rosaria Bonito and Patrick Hartigan and Laura Venuti and Mario Guarcello and Loredana Prisinzano and Costanza Argiroffi and Sergio Messina and Christopher Johns-Krull and Eric Feigelson and John Stauffer and Teresa Giannini and Simone Antoniucci and Salvo Sciortino and Giusi Micela and Ignazio Pillitteri and Davide Fedele and Linda Podio and Francesco Damiani and Peregrine McGehee and Rachel Street and John Gizis and Germano Sacco and Laura Magrini and Ettore Flaccomio and Salvatore Orlando and Marco Miceli and Beate Stelzer and Julien Fuchs and Sophia Chen and Sergey Pikuz and Antonio Frasca and Katia Biazzo and Claudio Codella and Andrea Pastorello and Juan Manuel Alcala' and Elvira Covino and Eleonora Bianchi and Brunella Nisini},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1812.03135},
year = {2020}
}
Comments
Contribution in response of the Call for White Papers on LSST Cadence Optimization