A Continuing Search for Periodic Variables in NGC 2264

Session 14 - Various Stellar Surveys.
Display session, Wednesday, January 07
Exhibit Hall,

[14.07] A Continuing Search for Periodic Variables in NGC 2264

K. E. Kearns, W. Herbst (Wesleyan U.)

We present results from a second season of monitoring fields in the young cluster NGC 2264 at Van Vleck Observatory. In the first season, we discovered nine periodic variables. That has now been increased to 32. Periods range from 1 to 17 days and the inference from our first year of monitoring - that the frequency distribution is shifted towards shorter periods than in the Orion Nebula Cluster (by about a factor of two) - is supported. We discuss the distribution of periods in this cluster in the context of the disk-locking model of angular momentum evolution.

We also present preliminary results on a very interesting star, with an apparent period of around 48 days and an amplitude exceeding three magnitudes. It appears to be an eclipsing system in which one component is non-luminous. Our fragmentary data suggest a complex structure for the eclipsing body. An interpretation in terms of a feature (proto-planet?) in a circumstellar disk, is proposed.

If you would like more information about this abstract, please follow the link to hea-www.harvard.edu/QEDT/kristin/ngc2264_AAS98/index.html. This link was provided by the author. When you follow it, you will leave the the Web space for this meeting; to return, you should use the Back button on your browser.

The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: kristin@astro.wesleyan.edu

Program listing for Wednesday