Pre-main-sequence disk accretion is pivotal for determining the final stellar properties and the early conditions for close-in planets. We aim to establish the impact of internal (stellar mass) and external (radiation field) parameters on the disk evolution in the Lagoon Nebula massive star-forming region. We employ simultaneous u, g, r, i, Hα time-series photometry, archival infrared data, and high-precision K2 light curves to derive the stellar, disk, and accretion properties for 1012 Lagoon Nebula members. We estimate that of all young stars in the Lagoon Nebula, 34%–37% have inner disks traceable down to ∼12 μm, while 38%–41% are actively accreting. We detect disks ∼1.5 times more frequently around G, K, and M stars than around higher-mass stars, which appear to deplete their inner disks on shorter timescales. We find tentative evidence for a faster disk evolution in the central regions of the Lagoon Nebula, where the bulk of the O/B population is located. Conversely, disks appear to last longer at the nebula outskirts, where the measured fraction of disk-bearing stars tends to exceed that of accreting and disk-free stars. The derived mass accretion rates show a nonuniform dependence on stellar mass between ∼0.2 and 5 M⊙. In addition, the typical accretion rates appear to differ across the Lagoon Nebula extension, with values twice lower in the core region than at its periphery. Finally, we detect tentative radial density gradients in the surface accretion shocks, leading to lags in the appearance of light curve brightness features as a function of wavelength that can amount to ∼7%–30% of the rotation period.
Circumstellar Disk Accretion Across the Lagoon Nebula: The Influence of Environment and Stellar Mass
Abstract
Copyright and License
© 2024. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society. Original content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.
Acknowledgement
We thank the anonymous referee for their thorough review that helped us strengthen the presentation of our results. This work was supported by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) under grant No. 80NSSC21K0633 issued through the NNH20ZDA001N Astrophysics Data Analysis Program (ADAP). L.V. warmly acknowledges the Centre for the Subatomic Structure of Matter for their hospitality during her stays at the University of Adelaide as a Visitor in 2022–2023. This research made use of Lightkurve, a Python package for Kepler and TESS data analysis (Lightkurve Collaboration et al. 2018), and Photutils, an Astropy package for detection and photometry of astronomical sources (Bradley et al. 2022). This publication makes use of data products from the Two Micron All Sky Survey, which is a joint project of the University of Massachusetts and the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center/California Institute of Technology, funded by NASA and the National Science Foundation. This publication also makes use of data products from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, which is a joint project of the University of California, Los Angeles, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology, funded by NASA. This work has also made use of data from the European Space Agency (ESA) mission Gaia (https://www.cosmos.esa.int/gaia), processed by the Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium (DPAC, https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/gaia/dpac/consortium). Funding for the DPAC has been provided by national institutions, in particular the institutions participating in the Gaia Multilateral Agreement.
Facilities
VST (OmegaCAM) - , Kepler/K2 - , Spitzer (IRAC) - Spitzer Space Telescope satellite
Software References
TOPCAT (Taylor 2005), SciPy (Virtanen et al. 2020), Photutils (Bradley et al. 2022)
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Additional details
- ISSN
- 1538-3881
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- 80NSSC21K0633
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- NNH20ZDA001N
- National Science Foundation
- European Space Agency
- Gaia Multilateral Agreement
- Caltech groups
- Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC)