2022 Undergraduate Research Symposium

Winner ðŸ†: Emily Elizondo (astronomy)

Faculty mentor: Edward Cackett

Abstract

Young stellar objects are often surrounded by gas and dust that has been left over from the initial formation of the star. This environment can become a breeding ground for planetary formation, as the gas and dust will evolve into the planetary systems that we see today. One way to directly study the building blocks of planets is to search for eclipses of young stars by their circumstellar material.

Using the list of pre-main-sequence stars from Zari et al. 2018, we analyzed the light curves of these targets from the Kilodegree Extremely Little Telescope (KELT) survey. This project aims to find eclipses of young stars by their circumstellar disk or some other component (secondary circumstellar disk, larger dust clump), and measure the rotation periods of this sample. We created vetting pages for the 1250 targets in this sample and then visually inspected every page looking for large (>10%) dimming events that lasted anywhere from weeks to months, consistent with an extended source eclipsing the system.

From this effort, we identified a 200-day-long 85% deep eclipse of the known young star system V773 Tau. We will present our search for eclipses of young stars and rotation periods, and discuss the current interpretation of the V773 Tau eclipse.

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