Issue |
A&A
Volume 684, April 2024
|
|
---|---|---|
Article Number | L8 | |
Number of page(s) | 8 | |
Section | Letters to the Editor | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202449282 | |
Published online | 10 April 2024 |
Letter to the Editor
Determining stellar accretion rates from Paα and Brβ emission lines with JWST NIRSpec
Accretion of pre-main-sequence stars in NGC 3603
1
Leiden Observatory, Leiden University, PO Box 9513, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands
e-mail: rogers@strw.leidenuniv.nl
2
European Space Research and Technology Centre, Keplerlaan 1, 2200 AG Noordwijk, The Netherlands
e-mail: gdemarchi@rssd.esa.int
3
Faculty of Aerospace Engineering, Delft University of Technology, Kluyverweg 1, 2629 HS Delft, The Netherlands
Received:
19
January
2024
Accepted:
11
March
2024
In this Letter, we present the first systematic spectroscopic measurements of the near-infrared (NIR) hydrogen recombination lines Paschen alpha (Paαλ = 1.875 μm) and Brackett beta (Brβλ = 2.626 μm), produced by pre-main-sequence (PMS) stars. Such stars include T Tauri and Herbig AeBe stars, located in the massive Galactic star-forming region NGC 3603. We used measurements obtained from JWST NIRSpec, using multi-object spectroscopy (MOS) mode. Based on the existing empirical relations between Lacc and LBrγ from the literature, we used our new measurements to formulate, for the first time, an empirical relationship between the accretion luminosity, Lacc, of the stars and the line luminosities, Lline, of both Paα and Brβ. These relationships are: log10(Lacc/L⊙) = 1.42(±0.18) × log10(LPaα/L⊙ + 3.33(±0.42) and log10(Lacc/L⊙) = 1.47(±0.18) × log10(LBrβ/L⊙) + 4.60(±0.57). These new relationships are key to establishing rough estimates of the accretion rates for large samples of PMS stars with JWST.
Key words: circumstellar matter / stars: evolution / stars: formation / stars: pre-main sequence / stars: variables: T Tauri / Herbig Ae/Be
© The Authors 2024
Open Access article, published by EDP Sciences, under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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