ACIS-I observations of NGC 2264. membership and X-ray properties of PMS stars

Abstract

Aims. This paper's goal is to improve the member census of the NGC 2264 star-forming region and study the origin of X-ray activity in young PMS stars. Methods. We analyze a deep, 100 ks long, Chandra ACIS observation covering a 17′ × 17′ field in NGC 2264. The preferential detection in X-rays of low-mass PMS stars gives strong indications of their membership. We study X-ray activity as a function of stellar and circumstellar characteristics by correlating the X-ray luminosities, temperatures, and absorptions with optical and near-infrared data from the literature. Results. We detect 420 X-ray point sources. Optical and NIR counterparts are found in the literature for 85% of the sources. We argue that more than 90% of these counterparts are NGC 2264 members, thereby significantly increasing the known low-mass cluster population by about 100 objects. Among the sources without counterpart, about 50% are probably associated with members, several of which we expect to be previously unknown protostellar objects. With regard to activity we confirm several previous findings: X-ray luminosity is related to stellar mass, although with a large scatter; Lx/Lbol is close to, but almost invariably below, the saturation level, 10-3, especially when considering the quiescent X-ray emission. A comparison between CTTS and WTTS shows several differences: CTTS have, at any given mass, activity levels that are both lower and more scattered than WTTS; emission from CTTS may also be more time variable and is on average slightly harder than for WTTS. However, we find evidence in some CTTS of extremely cool, ∼0.1 -0.2 keV, plasma which we speculate is heated by accretion shocks. Conclusions. Activity in low-mass PMS stars, while generally similar to that of saturated MS stars, may be significantly affected by mass accretion in several ways: accretion is probably responsible for very soft X-ray emission directly produced in the accretion shock; it may reduce the average energy output of solar-like coronae, at the same time making them hotter and more dynamic. We briefly speculate on a physical scenario that can explain these observations. © ESO 2006.