Toward the time-domain spectroscopic study of the dynamic life of stars: from accretion to magnetic activity

TL;DR

This paper emphasizes the importance of long-term, high-cadence spectroscopic monitoring of young stellar objects to understand their complex formation and evolution processes across various timescales.

Contribution

It advocates for a dedicated time-domain spectroscopic platform capable of multi-year, high-cadence observations to study the dynamic phenomena of YSOs.

Findings

YSOs exhibit variability from hours to years across multiple processes.

Long-term spectroscopic monitoring is essential to capture the full range of YSO dynamics.

A specialized facility is needed for comprehensive time-domain studies of star formation.

Abstract

Stars and planets can be seen as the second fundamental building blocks of baryons in the universe (only second to the dust and gas in molecular clouds). Their formation involves dust grain growth of many orders of magnitude and a myriad of processes operating at time scales from a few tens to millions of years. Thus, investigating the formation and evolution of young stellar objects (YSOs) is of great importance in modern astronomy. Addressing this goal requires overcoming long-standing challenges in characterizing multifaceted phenomena that span a broad range of astrophysical processes (from protoplanetary disk evolution and planet formation to accretion dynamics and transient stellar events). Also, YSOs are complex systems that consist of several components: a central forming object, surrounded by a medium or disk from which the accretion process is at work, supersonic ejection of plasma in the form of collimated bipolar jets (which interact with the ambient medium through which they propagate) and all these components emit in a wide range of wavelengths. A facility capable of simultaneously tackling these diverse questions must deliver long-term, high-cadence spectroscopic monitoring of YSOs over time spans of at least a decade; especially because accretion/ejection processes in YSOs are characterized by a wide range of temporal variability: from short-term (hours-days) to long-term (months-years) variability due to rotation, accretion, magnetic activity, etc. Such a mission demands a spectroscopic platform considering a solid time-domain astronomy framework, providing repeated observations over wide fields and supporting multiple cadence strategies tailored to distinct scientific objectives.