How do stars gain their mass? A JCMT/SCUBA-2 Transient Survey of Protostars in Nearby Star Forming Regions

Abstract

Most protostars have luminosities that are fainter than expected from steady accretion over the protostellar lifetime. The solution to this problem may lie in episodic mass accretion -- prolonged periods of very low accretion punctuated by short bursts of rapid accretion. However, the timescale and amplitude for variability at the protostellar phase is almost entirely unconstrained. In "A JCMT/SCUBA-2 Transient Survey of Protostars in Nearby Star Forming Regions", we are monitoring monthly with SCUBA-2 the sub-mm emission in eight fields within nearby (<500 pc) star forming regions to measure the accretion variability of protostars. The total survey area of ~1.6 sq.deg. includes ~105 peaks with peaks brighter than 0.5 Jy/beam (43 associated with embedded protostars or disks) and 237 peaks of 0.125-0.5 Jy/beam (50 with embedded protostars or disks). Each field has enough bright peaks for flux calibration relative to other peaks in the same field, which improves upon the nominal flux calibration uncertainties of sub-mm observations to reach a precision of ~2-3% rms, and also provides quantified confidence in any measured variability. The timescales and amplitudes of any sub-mm variation will then be converted into variations in accretion rate and subsequently used to infer the physical causes of the variability. This survey is the first dedicated survey for sub-mm variability and complements other transient surveys at optical and near-IR wavelengths, which are not sensitive to accretion variability of deeply embedded protostars.

ApJ, accepted

References in corpus (51)

• Spitzer Observations of NGC 1333: A Study of Structure and Evolution in a Nearby Embedded Cluster
• Identifying the Low Luminosity Population of Embedded Protostars in the c2d Observations of Clouds and Cores
• Bolocam Survey for 1.1 mm Dust Continuum Emission in the c2d Legacy Clouds. II. Ophiuchus
• The Gould's Belt Distances Survey (GOBELINS) II. Distances and structure towards the Orion Molecular Clouds
• Imaging the water-snow line during a protostellar outburst
• The Large and Small Scale Structures of Dust in the Star-Forming Perseus Molecular Cloud
• A SCUBA survey of Orion, the low-mass end of the core mass function
• Variable protostellar accretion with episodic bursts
• Comparing Star Formation on Large Scales in the c2d Legacy Clouds: Bolocam 1.1 mm Dust Continuum Surveys of Serpens, Perseus, and Ophiuchus
• The Gould's Belt Distances Survey (GOBELINS) I. Trigonometric parallax distances and depth of the Ophiuchus complex
• The James Clerk Maxwell Telescope Legacy Survey of Nearby Star-forming Regions in the Gould Belt
• Mapping accretion and its variability in the young open cluster NGC 2264: a study based on u-band photometry
• FellWalker - a Clump Identification Algorithm
• Current Star Formation in the Ophiuchus and Perseus Molecular Clouds: Constraints and Comparisons from Unbiased Submillimeter and Mid-Infrared Surveys. II
• The Spitzer Gould Belt Survey of Large Nearby Interstellar Clouds: Discovery of a Dense Embedded Cluster in the Serpens-Aquila Rift
• Current Star Formation in the Perseus Molecular Cloud: Constraints from Unbiased Submillimeter and Mid-Infrared Surveys
• The Gould's Belt Distances Survey (GOBELINS) III. The distance to the Serpens/Aquila Molecular Complex
• Temperaments of young stars: Rapid mass-accretion rate changes in T Tauri and Herbig Ae stars
• Accretion Outbursts in Self-gravitating Protoplanetary Disks
• Young Stellar Object Variability (YSOVAR): Long Timescale Variations in the Mid-Infrared
• HOPS 383: An Outbursting Class 0 Protostar in Orion
• Warps, bending and density waves excited by rotating magnetized stars: results of global 3D MHD simulations
• Molecule sublimation as a tracer of protostellar accretion: Evidence for accretion bursts from high angular resolution C18O images
• A closer look at the "characteristic" width of molecular cloud filaments
• Substellar Objects in Nearby Young Clusters (SONYC) VI: The planetary-mass domain of NGC1333
• Millimeter- and Submillimeter-Wave Observations of the OMC-2/3 Region. III. An Extensive Survey for Molecular Outflows
• A continuum of accretion burst behavior in young stars observed by K2
• CARMA Large Area Star Formation Survey: Structure and Kinematics of Dense Gas in Serpens Main
• Chemical tracers of episodic accretion in low-mass protostars
• Self-consistent evolution of accreting low-mass stars and brown dwarfs
• Synchrotron emission from the T Tauri binary system V773 Tau A
• The outburst of the eruptive young star OO Serpentis between 1995 and 2006
• Long-wavelength excesses of FU Orionis objects: flared outer disks or infalling envelopes?
• The fragmentation and stability of hierarchical structure in Serpens South
• The JCMT Gould Belt Survey: Dense Core Clusters in Orion A
• Characterizing the Youngest Herschel-detected Protostars I. Envelope Structure Revealed by CARMA Dust Continuum Observations
• EXor outbursts from disk amplification of stellar magnetic cycles
• Spiral-driven accretion in protoplanetary discs - III tri-dimensional simulations
• The JCMT Gould Belt Survey: First results from SCUBA-2 observations of the Cepheus Flare Region
• Self-Destructing Spiral Waves: Global Simulations of a Spiral Wave Instability in Accretion Disks
• The JCMT Gould Belt Survey: SCUBA-2 observations of circumstellar disks in L 1495
• Mass transport from the envelope to the disk of V346 Nor: a case study for the luminosity problem in an FUor-type young eruptive star
• Flares and variability from Sagittarius A*: five nights of simultaneous multi-wavelength observations
• Astro & cosmo-chemical consequences of accretion bursts I: the D/H ratio of water
• Variable Radio Emission from the Young Stellar Host of a Hot Jupiter
• Properties of the Molecular Cores of Low Luminosity Objects
• Large-Scale Spectroscopic Mapping of the $\rho$ Ophiuchi Molecular Cloud Complex I. The C${}_2$H to N${}_2$H${}^{+}$ Ratio as a Signpost of Cloud Characteristics
• The Serpens Molecular Cloud
• The JCMT Gould Belt Survey: low-mass proto-planetary discs from a SCUBA-2 census of NGC1333
• A Study of Mid-Infrared Sources that Dramatically Brightened
• The extraordinary far-infrared variation of a protostar: Herschel/PACS observations of LRLL54361

Cited by in corpus (29)

• CCAT-prime Collaboration: Science Goals and Forecasts with Prime-Cam on the Fred Young Submillimeter Telescope
• Quantifying Variability of YSOs in the Mid-IR Over Six Years with NEOWISE
• A Decade of SCUBA-2: A Comprehensive Guide to Calibrating 450 $\mu$m and 850 $\mu$m Continuum Data at the JCMT
• Constraining the Rate of Protostellar Accretion Outbursts in the Orion Molecular Clouds
• Origins Space Telescope Mission Concept Study Report
• On the accuracy of the ALMA flux calibration in the time domain and across spectral windows
• The Relationship between Mid-Infrared and Sub-Millimetre Variability of Deeply Embedded Protostars
• Young Faithful: The Eruptions of EC 53 as It Cycles through Filling and Draining the Inner Disk
• X-ray induced chemistry of water and related molecules in low-mass protostellar envelopes
• Radiative Transfer modeling of EC 53: An Episodically Accreting Class I Young Stellar Object
• The Green Bank Ammonia Survey: A Virial Analysis of Gould Belt Clouds in Data Release 1
• Linking ice and gas in the Serpens low-mass star-forming region
• Observational signatures of outbursting protostars -- II: Exploring a wide range of eruptive protostars
• The circumstellar environment around the embedded protostar EC 53
• Dissecting the different components of the modest accretion bursts of the very young protostar HOPS 373
• Accretion Burst Echoes as Probes of Protostellar Environments and Episodic Mass Assembly
• Identifying Variability in Deeply Embedded Protostars with ALMA and CARMA
• Detection of a dense SiO jet in the evolved protostellar phase
• The JCMT Transient Survey: Single Epoch Transients and Variability of Faint Sources
• Photometric and Spectroscopic monitoring of YSOs in nearby star forming regions. I. Eruptive YSOs
• Modeling snowline locations in protostars: The impact of the structure of protostellar cloud cores
• Interplay between Young Stars and Molecular Clouds in the Ophiuchus Star-forming Complex
• Submillimeter continuum variability in Planck Galactic cold clumps
• The JCMT Transient Survey: Four Year Summary of Monitoring the Submillimeter Variability of Protostars
• Jets in Low-Mass Protostars
• Submillimetre Transient Science in the Next Decade: EAO Submillimetre Futures White Paper Series, 2019
• Magnetic Fields Studies in the Next Decade: EAO Submillimetre Futures White Paper Series, 2019
• ALMA Survey of Orion Planck Galactic Cold Clumps (ALMASOP): Deriving Inclination Angle and Velocity of the Protostellar Jets from their SiO Knots
• Implementing Remote Observing at the JCMT