Multiepoch Ultraviolet HST Observations of Accreting Low-mass Stars

Abstract

Variability is a defining characteristic of young low-mass stars that are still accreting material from their primordial protoplanetary disk. Here we present the largest Hubble Space Telescope ( HST ) variability study of classical T Tauri stars (CTTS) to date. For five of these objects, we obtained a total of 25 spectra with the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph. Mass accretion rates and the fraction of the star covered by accretion columns (i.e., filling factors) were inferred using 1D NLTE physical models whose parameters were fit within a Bayesian framework. On week-long timescales, typical changes in the mass accretion rates range up to a factor of about two, while changes of up to a factor of about five are inferred for the filling factors. In addition to this, we observed a possible accretion burst in the transitional disk system GM Aur, and an incident we interpret as a chance alignment of an accretion column and the undisturbed photosphere along our line of sight in the full disk system VW Cha. We also measure correlations between mass accretion rate and line luminosities for use as secondary tracers of accretion. We place our objects in context with recent high-cadence photometric surveys of low-mass star formation regions and highlight the need for more broad-wavelength, contemporaneous data to better understand the physical mechanisms behind accretion variability in CTTS.