Citation Details

Hamaguchi, K.; Grosso, N.; Kastner, J.H.; Weintraub, D.A.; Richmond, M.; Petre, R.; Teets, W.K.; Principe, D., X-Raying the Beating Heart of a Newborn Star: Rotational Modulation of High-energy Radiation from V1647 Ori, The Astrophysical Journal, 754, 32, pp. 9- (2012) [BibTeX]

Keywords: stars: formation stars: individual: v1647 ori stars: pre-main sequence x-rays: stars

We report a periodicity of ~1 day in the highly elevated X-ray emission from the protostar V1647 Ori during its two recent multiple-year outbursts of mass accretion. This periodicity is indicative of protostellar rotation at near-break-up speed. Modeling of the phased X-ray light curve indicates that the high-temperature (~50 MK), X-ray-emitting plasma, which is most likely heated by accretion-induced magnetic reconnection, resides in dense (gsim 5 × 1010 cm-3), pancake-shaped magnetic footprints where the accretion stream feeds the newborn star. The sustained X-ray periodicity of V1647 Ori demonstrates that such protostellar magnetospheric accretion configurations can be stable over timescales of years.

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