Skip to main content
Unpublished Paper
The extraordinary far-infrared variation of a protostar: Herschel/PACS observations of LRLL54361
Astrophysical Journal Letters (2014)
  • Zoltan Balog
  • James Muzerolle
  • Kevin Flaherty
  • Ors H. Detre
  • Jeroen Bouwmann
  • Elise Furlan
  • R. A Gutermuth, University of Massachusetts - Amherst
  • Attila Juhasz
  • John Bally
Abstract

We report Herschel/Photodetector Array Camera and Spectrometer (PACS) photometric observations at 70 μm and 160 μm of LRLL54361—a suspected binary protostar that exhibits periodic (P = 25.34 days) flux variations at shorter wavelengths (3.6 μm and 4.5 μm) thought to be due to pulsed accretion caused by binary motion. The PACS observations show unprecedented flux variation at these far-infrared wavelengths that are well correlated with the variations at shorter wavelengths. At 70 μm the object increases its flux by a factor of six while at 160 μm the change is about a factor of two, consistent with the wavelength dependence seen in the far-infrared spectra. The source is marginally resolved at 70 μm with varying FWHM. Deconvolved images of the sources show elongations exactly matching the outflow cavities traced by the scattered light observations. The spatial variations are anti-correlated with the flux variation, indicating that a light echo is responsible for the changes in FWHM. The observed far-infrared flux variability indicates that the disk and envelope of this source is periodically heated by the accretion pulses of the central source, and suggests that such long wavelength variability in general may provide a reasonable proxy for accretion variations in protostars.

Keywords
  • stars: individual(LRLL54361),
  • stars: variables: general,
  • stars: formation,
  • stars: protostars,
  • infrared: stars
Publication Date
2014
Comments
Prepublished version downloaded from ArXiv. Published version is located at http://iopscience.iop.org/2041-8205/789/2/L38
Citation Information
Zoltan Balog, James Muzerolle, Kevin Flaherty, Ors H. Detre, et al.. "The extraordinary far-infrared variation of a protostar: Herschel/PACS observations of LRLL54361" Astrophysical Journal Letters (2014)
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/r_gutermuth/23/