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Published December 2008 | Published
Journal Article Open

Captured at millimeter wavelengths: a flare from the classical T Tauri star DQ Tauri

Abstract

For several hours on 2008 April 19, the T Tauri spectroscopic binary DQ Tau was observed to brighten, reaching a maximum detected flux of 468 mJy and likely making it (briefly) the brightest object at 3mm in the Taurus star-forming region. We present the light curve of a rarely before observed millimeter flare originating in the region around a pre-main-sequence star, and the first from a classical T Tauri star. We discuss the properties and nature of the flaring behavior in the context of pulsed accretion flows (the current picture based largely on studies of this object's optically variable spectrum), as well as magnetospheric re-connection models (a separate theory that predicts millimeter flares for close binaries of high orbital eccentricity). We believe that the flare mechanism is linked to the binary orbit, and therefore periodic. DQ Tau makes a strong case for multi-wavelength follow-up studies, performed in parallel, of future flares to help determine whether magnetospheric and dynamical interactions in a proto-binary system are independent.

Additional Information

© ESO 2008. Received 14 August 2008 / Accepted 21 October 2008. We would like to thank Jin Koda and Joanna Brown for help with the data collection and reduction. We would also like to thank the referee for many valuable comments that have helped us to improve our manuscript. Support for CARMA construction was derived from the states of California, Illinois, and Maryland, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the Kenneth T. and Eileen L. Norris Foundation, the Associates of the California Institute of Technology, and the National Science Foundation. Ongoing CARMA development and operations are supported by the National Science Foundation under a cooperative agreement, and by the CARMA partner universities. The research of D.M.S. and M.R.H. is supported through a VIDI grant from The Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research.

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August 22, 2023
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