The Variability of T Tau, RY Tau and RW Aur from 1899 to 1952

Abstract

We present the historical light curve of T Tau derived from photographic plates in the Harvard College Observatory archives. We find that the optical light of T Tau varied by 2-3 (or more) magnitudes on time scales as short as a month prior to ~1917, consistent with the results of Lozinskii (1949). Extreme light fluctuations of greater than 2 magnitudes abruptly ceased in the late 1910's and, to the best of our knowledge, have not repeated since this time. We compare the observed light variations of T Tau to the T Tauri stars RY Tau and RW Aur, whose light curves we also constructed from inspection of the archival plates. We find that variable extinction along the line of sight to the star is the most likely explanation for the observed light fluctuation of T Tau during the early part of the 20th century.

arXiv comment6 pages, 4 figures. Accepted for publication in the Astronomical Journal

References in corpus (4)

• A Third Star in the T Tauri System
• A circumstellar dust disk around T Tau N: Sub-arcsecond imaging at 3 mm
• Sub-arcsecond imaging at 267 GHz of a young binary system: Detection of a <70 AU radius dust disk around T Tau N
• Evidence for Extinction and Accretion Variability in T Tau S

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