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Stellar Rotation and Disks in the Orion Nebula Cluster

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 May 2016

W. Herbst ,
C. A. L. Bailer-Jones ,
R. Mundt ,
K. Meisenheimer  and
R. Wackermann
W. Herbst
Affiliation:
Astronomy Dept., Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT 06459, USA Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie, Konigstuhl 17, D-69117 Heidelberg, Germany
C. A. L. Bailer-Jones
Affiliation:
Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie, Königstuhl 17, D-69117 Heidelberg, Germany
R. Mundt
Affiliation:
Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie, Königstuhl 17, D-69117 Heidelberg, Germany
K. Meisenheimer
Affiliation:
Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie, Königstuhl 17, D-69117 Heidelberg, Germany
R. Wackermann
Affiliation:
Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie, Königstuhl 17, D-69117 Heidelberg, Germany

Abstract

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The new Wide Field Imager attached to the MPG/ESO 2.2 m telescope on La Silla, Chile, has been used to monitor ∽2000 stars in the Orion Nebula Cluster (ONC) at 815 nm on 45 nights between 25 Dec 1998 and 28 Feb 1999. Over 400 periodic variables have been found, most or all of which are rotating, spotted T Tauri stars (TTS), more than doubling the number of known rotation periods for cluster members. Masses and ages are available for 335 of these from the literature. We confirm the existence of a bimodal period distribution for stars with M > 0.25 M⊙. A surprising new result is that stars of lower mass tend to rotate faster than higher mass stars, perhaps indicating that their disks have dissipated more rapidly in the harsh cluster environment. In the mass range 0.1 − 1 M⊙ between 40% and 80% of the stars have the variability characteristics of weak-line TTS (WTTS), suggesting that the half-life for accretion disks is ∽1 Myr in this cluster and probably even smaller for the lower mass stars.

Type
Part IV: Protoplanetary and β Pic disks
Information
Symposium - International Astronomical Union , Volume 202: Planetary Systems in the Universe – Observation, Formation and Evolution , 2004 , pp. 341 - 343
Copyright
Copyright © Astronomical Society of the Pacific 2004 

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