Protostars and Planets VI, Heidelberg, July 15-20, 2013

Poster 1H029

Herschel/PACS Observation of a Variable Protostar

Balog, Zoltan (MPIA, Heidelberg, Germany)
Flaherty, Kevin (University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA)
Muzerolle, James (STScI, Baltimore, MD, USA)
Gutermuth, Robert (University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, USA)
Furlan, Elise (National Optical Astronomy Observatory,Tucson, AZ, USA)
Detre, Ors (MPIA, Heidelberg, Germany)

Abstract:
We present the first complete Herchel/PACS 70 μm and 160 μm light curve of the young variable protostar LRLL54361, located in the IC348 cloud at 300 pc. It exhibits periodic variations in luminosity at near- and mid-infrared wavelengths and shows a remarkably stable periodicity of 25.34 days over a time span of several years. Scattered light images at 1.6 μm reveal a light echo propagating through the envelope. Previous studies have attributed the luminosity change to pulsed accretion due to a binary. We have obtained 29 epochs of observations using the PACS instrument on board Herschel during our monitoring campaign of IC348 to get a complete phase coverage of the 25.34 days period. Our observations show unprecedented flux variation at these far infrared wavelengths (factor of six at 70 and factor of two at 160 μm) that are well correlated with the variations seen at shorter wavelengths.

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