X-ray Photoevaporation-Starved T Tauri Accretion Disks
First Author:
Jeremy Drake
Email: jdrake AT cfa.harvard.edu
SAO
60 Garden St, MS-3
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA
Abstract
A new analysis of disk accretion onto T Tauri stars in Orion reveals an inverse correlation between the mass accretion rate and X-ray luminosity of the central star. These results confirm in detail earlier hints that accreting stars have generally lower X-ray luminosities than non-accretors. Current thinking posits that accretion somehow suppresses, disrupts or obscures coronal X-rayactivity. Here, we suggest that the opposite might be the case: the rate of inflow in T Tauri disks is modulated by photoevaporation of the disk by X-ray heating by the parent star. We present the results of our Orion analysis and compare these to predictions from state-of-the-art calculations of EUV-X-ray driven photoevaporation ofT Tauri disks.
