Photometric variability of the T Tauri star TW Hya on time scales of hours to years

TL;DR

This study analyzes TW Hya's photometric variability over hours to years using MOST and ASAS data, revealing flicker noise behavior, variable periodicities, and potential accretion-related mechanisms.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive variability spectrum of TW Hya across multiple time scales and questions the planetary origin of observed periodicities.

Findings

Flicker noise variability over four decades in frequency.

Presence of a 3.7-day period in 2007 data, absent in 2008.

Multiple unstable periods between 2-9 days with shortening tendency.

Abstract

MOST (Microvariability & Oscillations of STars) and ASAS (All Sky Automated Survey) observations have been used to characterize photometric variability of TW Hya on time scales from a fraction of a day to 7.5 weeks and from a few days to 8 years, respectively. The two data sets have very different uncertainties and temporal coverage properties and cannot be directly combined, nevertheless, they suggests a global variability spectrum with "flicker noise" properties, i.e. with amplitudes a ~ 1/sqrt(f), over >4 decades in frequency, in the range f = 0.0003 to 10 cycles per day (c/d). A 3.7 d period is clearly present in the continuous 11 day, 0.07 d time resolution, observations by MOST in 2007. Brightness extrema coincide with zero-velocity crossings in periodic (3.56 d) radial velocity variability detected in contemporaneous spectroscopic observations of Setiawan et al. (2008) and interpreted as caused by a planet. The 3.56/3.7 d periodicity was entirely absent in the second, four times longer MOST run in 2008, casting doubt on the planetary explanation. Instead, a spectrum of unstable single periods within the range of 2 - 9 days was observed; the tendency of the periods to progressively shorten was well traced using the wavelet analysis. The evolving periodicities and the overall flicker-noise characteristics of the TW Hya variability suggest a combination of several mechanisms, with the dominant ones probably related to the accretion processes from the disk around the star.