Captured at Millimeter Wavelengths: a Flare from the Classical T Tauri Star DQ Tau

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 3 mm 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.

4 pages, Accepted for publication in A&A Letters

References in corpus (4)

• Periodic accretion from a circumbinary disk in the young binary UZ Tau E
• Synchrotron emission from the T Tauri binary system V773 Tau A
• Interacting coronae of two T Tauri stars: first observational evidence for solar-like helmet streamers
• A 1.3 cm wavelength radio flare from a deeply embedded source in the Orion BN/KL region

Cited by in corpus (14)

• Accretion and Magnetic Reconnection in the Classical T Tauri Binary DQ Tau
• Stellar versus Galactic: The intensity of cosmic rays at the evolving Earth and young exoplanets around Sun-like stars
• Anomalous Accretion Activity and the Spotted Nature of the DQ Tau Binary System
• Extreme radio flares and associated X-ray variability from young stellar objects in the Orion Nebula Cluster
• ASGARD: A Large Survey for Slow Galactic Radio Transients. I. Overview and First Results
• The Inner Disk and Accretion Flow of the Close Binary DQ Tau
• Interferometric Evidence for Resolved Warm Dust in the DQ Tau System
• A Search For X-ray Emission From Colliding Magnetospheres In Young Eccentric Stellar Binaries
• The JCMT Transient Survey: Single Epoch Transients and Variability of Faint Sources
• A systematic survey of millimetre-wavelength flaring variability of Young Stellar Objects in the Orion Nebula Cluster
• Discovery of extraordinary X-ray emission from magnetospheric interaction in the unique binary stellar system $\epsilon$ Lupi
• The Young Binary DQ Tau Produces Another X-ray Flare Near Periastron
• Flaring Latitudes in Ensembles of Low Mass Stars
• Submillimetre Transient Science in the Next Decade: EAO Submillimetre Futures White Paper Series, 2019