0000000001263351

AUTHOR

M. G. Guarcello

Correlation between the spatial distribution of the circumstellar disks and the massive stars in the open cluster NGC 6611. Compiled catalog and cluster parameters

Context: the observation of young stars with circumstellar disks suggests that the disks are dissipated, starting from the inner region, by the radiation of the central star and eventually by the formation of rocky planetesimals, over a time scale of several million years. It was also shown that strong UV radiation emitted by nearby massive stars can heat a circumstellar disk up to some thousand degrees, inducing the photoevaporation of the gas. This process strongly reduces the dissipation time scale. Aims: we study whether there exists a correlation between the spatial distribution of stars with circumstellar disks and the position of massive stars with spectral class earlier than B5, in …

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CSI 2264: Simultaneous optical and X-ray variability in pre-main sequence stars. I. Time resolved X-ray spectral analysis during optical dips and accretion bursts in stars with disks

Pre-main sequence stars are variable sources. In stars with disks, this variability is related to the morphology of the inner circumstellar region (<0.1 AU) and that of the photosphere and corona, all impossible to be spatially resolved with present day techniques. This has been the main motivation for the Coordinated Synoptic Investigation of NGC 2264. In this paper, we focus on the stars with disks. We analyze the X-ray spectral properties extracted during optical bursts and dips in order to unveil the nature of these phenomena. We analyze simultaneous CoRoT and Chandra/ACIS-I observations to search for coherent optical and X-ray flux variability in stars with disks. Then, stars are an…

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CSI2264: Simultaneous optical and X-ray variability in the pre-main sequence stars of NGC2264. II: Photometric variability, magnetic activity, and rotation in classIII objects and stars with transition disks

Pre-main sequence stars are variable sources. In diskless stars this variability is mainly due to the rotational modulation of dark photospheric spots and active regions, as in main sequence stars even if associated with a stronger magnetic activity. Aims. We aim at analyzing the simultaneous optical and X-ray variability in these stars to unveil how the activity in the photosphere is connected with that in the corona, to identify the dominant surface magnetic activity, and to correlate our results with stellar properties, such as rotation and mass. Methods. We analyzed the simultaneous optical and X-ray variability in stars without inner disks (e.g., class III objects and stars with transi…

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Pre-main sequence stars with disks in the Eagle Nebula observed in scattered light

NGC6611 and its parental cloud, the Eagle Nebula (M16), are well-studied star-forming regions, thanks to their large content of both OB stars and stars with disks and the observed ongoing star formation. We identified 834 disk-bearing stars associated with the cloud, after detecting their excesses in NIR bands from J band to 8.0 micron. In this paper, we study in detail the nature of a subsample of disk-bearing stars that show peculiar characteristics. They appear older than the other members in the V vs. V-I diagram, and/or they have one or more IRAC colors at pure photospheric values, despite showing NIR excesses, when optical and infrared colors are compared. We confirm the membership of…

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Chronology of star formation and disk evolution in the Eagle Nebula

Massive SFR are characterized by intense ionizing fluxes, strong stellar winds and supernovae explosions, all of which have important effects on the surrounding media, on the star-formation (SF) process and on the evolution of YSOs and their disks. We present a multiband study of the massive young cluster NGC6611 and M16, to study how OB stars affect the early stellar evolution and the SF. We search for evidence of triggered SF by OB stars in NGC6611 on a large spatial scale (~10 pc) and how the efficiency of disks photoevaporation depends on the central stars mass. We assemble a multiband catalog with photometric data, from B band to 8.0micron, and X-ray data obtained with 2 new and 1 arch…

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Pre-main sequence stars older than 8 Myr in the Eagle Nebula

Attention is given to a population of 110 stars in the NGC 6611 cluster of the Eagle Nebula that have prominent near-infrared (NIR) excess and optical colours typical of pre-main sequence (PMS) stars older than 8 Myr. At least half of those for which spectroscopy exists have a Halpha emission line profile revealing active accretion. In principle, the V-I colours of all these stars would be consistent with those of young PMS objects (< 1 Myr) whose radiation is heavily obscured by a circumstellar disc seen at high inclination and in small part scattered towards the observer by the back side of the disc. However, using theoretical models it is shown here that objects of this type can only …

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Correlation between the spatial distribution of circumstellar disks and massive stars in the young open cluster NGC 6611

Context: the observations of the proplyds in the Orion Nebula Cluster, showing clear evidence of ongoing photoevaporation, have provided a clear proof about the role of the externally induced photoevaporation in the evolution of circumstellar disks. NGC 6611 is an open cluster suitable to study disk photoevaporation, thanks to its large population of massive members and of stars with disk. In a previous work, we obtained evidence of the influence of the strong UV field generated by the massive cluster members on the evolution of disks around low-mass Pre-Main Sequence members. That work was based on a multi-band BVIJHK and X-ray catalog purposely compiled to select the cluster members with …

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Simultaneous Kepler/K2 and XMM-Newton observations of superflares in the Pleiades

Flares are powerful events ignited by a sudden release of magnetic energy. With the aim of studying flares in the 125-Myr-old stars in the Pleiades observed simultaneously in optical and X-ray light, we obtained new XMM-Newton observations of this cluster during the observations of Kepler K2 Campaign 4. Our objective is to characterize the most powerful flares observed in both bands and to constrain the energy released in the optical and X-ray, the geometry of the loops, and their time evolution. We aim to compare our results to existing studies of flares occurring in the Sun and stars at different ages. We selected bright X-ray/optical flares occurred in 12 known members of the Pleiades fr…

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Spectroscopic observations of blue stars with infrared excesses in NGC 6611

The young open cluster NGC 6611 includes among its candidate members a class of peculiar objects with interesting properties: blue stars with infrared IR excesses. These stars show excesses in IR bands, signature of the presence of a circumstellar disk, but optical colors typical of older field stars. In order to confirm their membership to the cluster, it is therefore important to use new spectroscopic observations, together with previous photometric data. We aim at confirming the membership of these objects and at investigating their physical properties to verify whether the observed colors are intrinsic or altered by the presence of the disk or by the accretion processes. We analyze the …

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Could CoRoT-7b and Kepler-10b be remnants of evaporated gas or ice giants?

We present thermal mass loss calculations over evolutionary time scales for the investigation if the smallest transiting rocky exoplanets CoRoT-7b (∼1.68REarth) and Kepler-10b (∼1.416REarth) could be remnants of an initially more massive hydrogen-rich gas giant or a hot Neptune-class exoplanet. We apply a thermal mass loss formula which yields results that are comparable to hydrodynamic loss models. Our approach considers the effect of the Roche lobe, realistic heating efficiencies and a radius scaling law derived from observations of hot Jupiters. We study the influence of the mean planetary density on the thermal mass loss by placing hypothetical exoplanets with the characteristics of Jup…

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Simultaneous Kepler/K2 and XMM‐Newton observations of superflares in the Pleiades

Proceeding of a contributed talk given at the meeting: "TIME-DOMAIN ASTRONOMY: A HIGH ENERGY VIEW" held at ESAC, Madrid, 13 - 15 JUNE 2018 Together with coronal mass ejection, flares are the most energetic stellar magnetic events, ignited by a sudden release of magnetic energy, which triggers a cascade of interconnected phenomena, each resulting in emission in different bands. For this reason, flares are intrinsic multiwavelength phenomena. In particular, optical and soft X-ray emission probes two different events occurring during flares: the heating of plasma in the upper photosphere at the footpoints of the magnetic loops and the heating and cooling of the plasma confined in the loops in …

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CSI 2264: Simultaneous optical and X-ray variability in the pre-main sequence stars of NGC 2264

Context. Pre-main sequence stars are variable sources. In diskless stars this variability is mainly due to the rotational modulation of dark photospheric spots and active regions, as in main sequence stars even if associated with a stronger magnetic activity.Aims. We aim at analyzing the simultaneous optical and X-ray variability in these stars to unveil how the activity in the photosphere is connected with that in the corona, to identify the dominant surface magnetic activity, and to correlate our results with stellar properties, such as rotation and mass.Methods. We analyzed the simultaneous optical and X-ray variability in stars without inner disks (e.g., class III objects and stars with…

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