Young Faithful: The Eruptions of EC 53 as It Cycles through Filling and Draining the Inner Disk
Yong-Hee Lee, Doug Johnstone, Jeong-Eun Lee, Gregory Herczeg, Steve, Mairs, Watson Varricatt, Klaus W. Hodapp, Tim Naylor, Carlos Contreras, Pe\~na, Giseon Baek, Martin Haas, Rolf Chini, The JCMT Transient Team

TL;DR
This study presents a detailed observational and schematic analysis of cyclical accretion bursts in the young stellar object EC 53, revealing the physical processes and disk dynamics involved in these episodic eruptions.
Contribution
It provides the first detailed schematic model of cyclical accretion bursts in EC 53, linking observed luminosity changes to disk mass buildup and draining mechanisms.
Findings
EC 53 undergoes regular bursts lasting about 530 days.
Luminosity increases are consistent with accretion rates of approximately 8×10⁻⁶ M☉/yr.
Disk mass buildup triggers eruptions, with observable color changes indicating geometric height variations.
Abstract
While young stellar objects sometimes undergo bursts of accretion, these bursts usually occur sporadically, making them challenging to study observationally and to explain theoretically. We build a schematic description of cyclical bursts of the young stellar object EC 53 using near-IR and sub-mm monitoring obtained over six cycles, each lasting days. EC 53 brightens over yr by mag at 850 m, mag at 3.35 m, and mag at near-IR wavelengths, to a maximum luminosity consistent with an accretion rate of M yr. The emission then decays with an e-folding timescale of yr until the accretion rate is M yr. The next eruption then occurs, likely triggered by the buildup of M of mass in the inner disk, enough that it becomes unstable and…
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