The X-ray origin of Herbig AeBe systems: New insights

Abstract

We present a statistical study of the X-ray emission toward 22 Herbig AeBe stars (HAEBE) using the Chandra archive. We probe the origin of the X-rays toward Herbig stars: are they intrinsic?This question is addressed by correlations between the physical stellar properties and the X-ray emission. There is a weak correlation between the continuum radio emission at λ = 3.6 cm and L X, which suggests that the X-ray emission depends upon the source. On the other hand, no correlation was found with the stellar rotational period, but that only excludes solar-like magnetic activity as the origin of the X-rays. Most importantly, the X-ray luminosity of HAEBE has a different distribution from that of T Tauri stars, suggesting that X-ray emission from an unseen late-type star companion can be ruled out with an 80% confidence level. This implies that the HAEBE must have magnetic activity. In addition, we report the observation of five sources for the first time, in three detections. © 2008. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.