A Population of Eruptive Variable Protostars in VVV
Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 000, 1{?? (2002) Printed 1 November 2016 (MN LATEX style file v2.2) A population of eruptive variable protostars in VVV C. Contreras Pe~na1;4;2,? P. W. Lucas2, D. Minniti1;7, R. Kurtev3;4, W. Stimson2, C. Navarro Molina4;3, J. Borissova3;4, M. S. N. Kumar2, M.A. Thompson2, T. Gledhill2, R. Terzi2, D. Froebrich5, and A. Caratti o Garatti6 1Departamento de Ciencias Fisicas, Universidad Andres Bello, Republica 220, Santiago, Chile 2Centre for Astrophysics Research, University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, AL10 9AB, UK 3Instituto de F´ısica y Astronom´ıa,Universidad de Valpara´ıso,ave. Gran Breta~na,1111, Casilla 5030, Valpara´ıso,Chile 4Millennium Institute of Astrophysics, Av. Vicuna Mackenna 4860, 782-0436, Macul, Santiago, Chile 5Centre for Astrophysics and Planetary Science, University of Kent, Canterbury CT2 7NH, UK 6Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, School of Cosmic Physics, Astronomy & Astrophysics Section, 31 Fitzwilliam Place, Dublin 2, Ireland 7Vatican Observatory, V00120 Vatican City State, Italy 1 November 2016 ABSTRACT We present the discovery of 816 high amplitude infrared variable stars (∆Ks > 1 mag) in 119 deg2 of the Galactic midplane covered by the Vista Variables in the Via Lactea (VVV) survey. Almost all are new discoveries and about 50% are YSOs. This provides further evidence that YSOs are the commonest high amplitude infrared variable stars in the Galactic plane. In the 2010-2014 time series of likely YSOs we find that the amplitude of variability increases towards younger evolutionary classes (class I and flat-spectrum sources) except on short timescales (<25 days) where this trend is reversed.
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