Measurements of the Ca II infrared triplet emission lines of pre-main-sequence stars

TL;DR

This study examines the Ca II infrared triplet emission lines in 60 pre-main-sequence stars to understand their chromospheric activity and its relation to stellar rotation and mass accretion, revealing that most PMS stars have chromospheric activity similar to main-sequence stars.

Contribution

It provides detailed spectroscopic analysis of Ca II IRT lines in PMS stars, highlighting the role of mass accretion and chromospheric activity, with new insights into the emission line characteristics.

Findings

Most PMS stars show narrow emission lines indicating dense chromospheric regions.

Four PMS stars exhibit broad, bright emission lines linked to high mass accretion.

No clear correlation between accretion rate and emission line flux was found.

Abstract

We investigated the chromospheric activity of 60 pre-main-sequence (PMS) stars in four molecular clouds and five moving groups. It is considered that strong chromospheric activity is driven by the dynamo processes generated by the stellar rotation. In contrast, several researchers have pointed out that the chromospheres of PMS stars are activated by mass accretion from their protoplanetary disks. In this study, the Ca II infrared triplet (IRT) emission lines were investigated utilizing medium- and high-resolution spectroscopy. The observations were conducted with Nayuta/MALLS and Subaru/HDS. Additionally, archive data obtained by Keck/HIRES, VLT/UVES, and VLT/X-Shooter was used. The small ratios of the equivalent widths indicate that Ca II IRT emission lines arise primarily in dense chromospheric regions. Seven PMS stars show broad emission lines. Among them, four PMS stars have more than one order of magnitude brighter emission line fluxes compared to the low-mass stars in young open clusters. The four PMS stars have a high mass accretion rate, which indicates that the broad and strong emission results from a large mass accretion. However, most PMS stars exhibit narrow emission lines. No significant correlation was found between the accretion rate and flux of the emission line. The ratios of the surface flux of the Ca II IRT lines to the stellar bolometric luminosity, R'_IRT, of the PMS stars with narrow emission lines are as large as the largest R'_IRT of the low-mass stars in the young open clusters. This result indicates that most PMS stars, even in the classical T Tauri star stage, have chromospheric activity similar to zero-age main-sequence stars.