Laboratory for Millimeter-wave Astronomy

Shaye Storm's Research

I am studying low-mass star formation in the molecular clouds and cores of the Milky Way using data from the Cores-to-Disks (c2d) and Gould's Belt (GB) Spitzer Legacy Projects. The goal is to characterize the mid-infrared variability of Young Stellar Objects (YSOs) over a range of timescales and formation environments. The search for variability among the youngest objects in the mid-infrared will provide information about accretion mechanisms in embedded systems.

ADS Listing for past 5 years

IC 5146
I am focusing on the star forming region IC 5146. IC 5146 is at a distance of 1± 0.2 kpc towards the constellation Cygnus and spans nearly 5 pc across. The GB team identified over 100 YSOs in this region. The majority of them are Class II sources, but Class I, Flat, and Class III sources are also present. This figure shows a RGB (R=MIPS 1, G=IRAC 4, B=IRAC 2) image of IC 5146, with YSOs identified by colored boxes: the Class II YSOs are white, ClassI/Flat YSOs are magenta, and Class II YSOs are blue. The scale marker represents 2 arcminutes.

Variable YSO Example
This is an SED of a Class II YSO observed in IC 5146. The black points represent its 2MASS J, H, and K fluxes. The blue points represent its Spitzer IRAC (3.6, 4.5, 5.8, 8.0μm) fluxes as observed in 2004, while the red points represent fluxes observed 2.5 years later. The green points represent its MIPS (24 μm) fluxes from 2006 observed three days apart. Focusing on the IRAC wavelengths, it is clear that the YSO is variable in the mid-infrared on time scales of two years. A KO stellar SED is also shown, which we scale to match 100% of the J flux. We are exploring the causes of this variability with a simple thermal disk model. By 5-8 μm, the emission from the YSO is dominated by light from the inner disk. Therefore, to understand mid-infrared variability, we need to understand the variable nature of the protoplanetary disk surrounding the central source.

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