Stellar Rotation of T Tauri Stars in the Orion Star-forming Complex
Javier Serna, Jesús Hernández, Marina Kounkel, Ezequiel Manzo-Martínez, Alexandre Roman–Lopes, C. Román-Zúñiga, Maria Gracia Batista, Giovanni Pinzón, Nuria Calvet, César Briceño, M. Tapia, Genaro Suárez, Karla Peña Ramírez, Keivan G. Stassun, Kevin R. Covey, Jaime Vargas-González, José G. Fernández-Trincado
Abstract
Abstract We present a large-scale study of stellar rotation for T Tauri stars in the Orion star-forming complex. We use the projected rotational velocity ( <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mi>v</mml:mi> <mml:mi>sin</mml:mi> <mml:mo stretchy="false">(</mml:mo> <mml:mi>i</mml:mi> <mml:mo stretchy="false">)</mml:mo> </mml:math> ) estimations reported by the APOGEE-2 collaboration as well as individual masses and ages derived from the position of the stars in the HR diagram, considering Gaia-EDR3 parallaxes and photometry plus diverse evolutionary models. We find an empirical trend for <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mi>v</mml:mi> <mml:mi>sin</mml:mi> <mml:mo stretchy="false">(</mml:mo> <mml:mi>i</mml:mi> <mml:mo stretchy="false">)</mml:mo> </mml:math> decreasing with age for low-mass stars (0.4 M ⊙ < M * < 1.2 M ⊙ ). Our results support the existence of a mechanism linking <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mi>v</mml:mi> <mml:mi>sin</mml:mi> <mml:mo stretchy="false">(</mml:mo> <mml:mi>i</mml:mi> <mml:mo stretchy="false">)</mml:mo> </mml:math> to the presence of accreting protoplanetary disks, responsible for regulating stellar rotation on timescales of about 6 Myr, which is the timescale in which most of the T Tauri stars lose their inner disk. Our results provide important constraints to models of rotation in the early phases of evolution of young stars and their disks.