Optical veiling, disk accretion, and the evolution of T Tauri stars

Journal Article · Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 1990 · Astrophysical Journal; (USA)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1086/168305· OSTI ID:6997561

Hartmann, L W; Kenyon, S J ^[1]

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1. Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, MA (USA)

High-resolution spectra of 31 K7-M1 T Tauri stars (TTs) in the Taurus-Auriga molecular cloud demonstrate that most of these objects exhibit substantial excess emission at 5200 A. Extrapolations of these data consistent with low-resolution spectrophotometry indicate that the extra emission is comparable to the stellar luminosity in many cases. If this continuum emission arises in the boundary layers of accreting disks, more than about 30 percent of all TTs may be accreting material at a rate which is sufficiently rapid to alter their evolution from standard Hayashi tracks. It is estimated that roughly 10 percent of the final stellar mass is accreted in the TT phase. This amount of material is comparable to the minimum gravitationally unstable disk mass estimated by Larson and it is speculated that the TT phase represents the final stages of disk accretion driven by gravitational instabilities. 40 refs.

• OSTI ID: 6997561
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal; (USA), Vol. 349; ISSN 0004-637X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
T TAURI STARS
STAR EVOLUTION
ACCRETION DISKS
BOUNDARY LAYERS
COSMIC GASES
EMISSION SPECTRA
GRAVITATIONAL INSTABILITY
HERTZSPRUNG-RUSSELL DIAGRAM
INTERSTELLAR SPACE
LUMINOSITY
MASS
SPECTROPHOTOMETRY
STAR ACCRETION
DIAGRAMS
ERUPTIVE VARIABLE STARS
FLUIDS
GASES
INSTABILITY
LAYERS
OPTICAL PROPERTIES
PHYSICAL PROPERTIES
PLASMA INSTABILITY
SPACE
SPECTRA
STARS
VARIABLE STARS
640102* - Astrophysics & Cosmology- Stars & Quasi-Stellar
Radio & X-Ray Sources