Photometric Variability Properties of 21 T Tauri and Related Stars from AAVSO Visual Observations
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John R. Percy
Samantha Esteves
Jou Glasheen
Alfred Lin
Junjiajia Long
Marina Mashintsova
Emil Terziev
Sophia Wu
Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5S 3H4, Canada
Presented at the 98th Annual Meeting of the AAVSO, November 7, 2009
Received February 19, 2010; revised April 9, 2010; accepted June 1, 2010
Abstract
T Tauri variables are sun-like stars in various stages of their birth. We have analyzed long-term AAVSO visual observations of 21 T Tauri and related stars, using Fourier and self-correlation techniques. This follows our previous study of eleven such stars in JAAVSO 35, 290 (2006). Only a few of the variables showed periodic behavior, but self-correlation analysis makes it possible to construct a “variability profile”—amount of variability versus time scale—for all the stars, not just the periodic ones. For some of the periodic variables, we have studied the long-term behavior of the periods and amplitudes: T Cha and HT Lup appear to be rotating variables with stable periods less than 10 days; RU Lup, UX Ori, and TU Phe appear to show transient cycles of typically 50–500 days, probably arising in the accretion disc. R CrA has a stable 66-day period, which would be unusually long for a rotation period; its cause is not clear. We also discuss interesting but spurious low-amplitude one-year and one-month periodicities which occur in a few of the stars. Finally: we comment on the star AQ Dra, an RR Lyrae star, originally classified as a T Tauri star with a 5.5-day period.
