The Search For Pulsation In Young Low-mass Stars And Brown Dwarfs: A High-precision Photometric Census Of Variability At 3-5 Myr

Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy

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Scientific paper

In 2005, Palla & Baraffe proposed that brown dwarfs and very low mass stars (<0.1 solar masses) may be unstable to radial oscillations during the pre-main-sequence deuterium burning phase. With associated oscillation periods of 1-4 hours, this potentially new class of pulsation offers unprecedented opportunities to probe the interiors and evolution of low-mass objects in the 1-15 My age range. Furthermore, several previous reports of short-period variability have suggested that deuterium-burning pulsation is in fact at work in young clusters.
As part of my dissertation, I developed a photometric monitoring campaign to search for low-amplitude periodic variability in young brown dwarfs and very low mass stars. I will discuss the details of high-precision, high-cadence time series photometry in four young clusters, using meter-class telescopes from both the ground and space. The survey achieves sensitivity to periodic oscillations with photometric amplitudes down to several millimagnitudes. I will present the census of variability on timescales ranging from minutes to days in a sample of 100 young, low-mass cluster members. While I find a dearth of photometric periods under 10 hours, the campaign's high time resolution and precision have enabled detailed study of diverse light curve behavior in the clusters: rotational spot modulation, accretion signatures, and occultations by surrounding disk material. Analysis of our data has led to the establishment of a lower limit for the time scale of photometry variability in young low-mass and substellar objects, an extension of the rotation period distribution to the brown dwarf regime, as well as a new study on the connection between variability and circumstellar disks in the Sigma Orionis cluster.

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