SUMMARY OF PROPOSAL 52004
MASS. INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
77 MASS. AVE.
CAMBRIDGE
MA USA 02139
Tel: (617) 253-3875 Fax: (617) 253-0861
Medium: 4GBDAT
Subject: STARS
ASCA STUDIES OF THE NEAREST REGION OF STAR FORMATION
ABSTRACT
Recent studies of the classical T Tauri star (TTS) TW Hya and of five other nearby "isolated TTS" demonstrate that these 6 stars comprise a cloudless TTS association that lies only 30 pc from the Sun. All 6 systems are bright X-ray sources, with X-ray fluxes that are an order of magnitude larger, on average, than the (absorption-corrected) X-ray fluxes of T Tauri stars in well-studied dark clouds like Taurus (D=140 pc). We propose to observe these 6 stars with ASCA, to study high-temperature emission and circumstellar absorption in nearby TTS that are not obscured by cloud material. These observations will provide a new foundation for the intrepretation of X-ray spectra of cloud TTS, as well as new constraints on the rates of X-ray ionization and heating of circumstellar gas.
CO-INVESTIGATORS
| CO-I NAME | INSTITUTE | COUNTRY |
|---|
| DAVID HUENEMOERDER | MIT | USA |
| ERIC GAIDOS | MIT | USA |
| DAVID WEINTRAUB | VANDERBILT U. | USA |
| BEN ZUCKERMAN | UCLA | USA |
| NORBERT SHULTZ | MIT | USA |
TARGETS
| TARGET NAME | PRI | RA | DEC | TIME | TC | OFF | GIS | SIS CNT | OBS |
|---|
| 1)TW HYA | 1 | 165.4667 | -34.7044 | 40 ks | N | Y | P | 0.12000 | 1 |
TARGET 1
THIS IS THE HIGHEST PRIORITY TARGET FOR THIS PROPOSAL.