Simultaneous X-ray, radio, near-infrared, and optical monitoring of young stellar objects in theCoronetcluster

Abstract

Context. Multi-wavelength (X-ray to radio) monitoring of Young Stellar Objects (YSOs) can provide important information about physical processes at the stellar surface, in the stellar corona, and/or in the inner circumstellar disk regions. While coronal processes should mainly cause variations in the X-ray and radio bands, accretion processes may be traced by time-correlated variability in the X-ray and optical/infrared bands. Several multi-wavelength studies have been successfully performed for field stars and ~$1{-}10$ Myr old T Tauri stars, but so far no such study succeeded in detecting simultaneous X-ray to radio variability in extremely young objects like class I and class 0 protostars. Aims. Here we present the first simultaneous X-ray, radio, near-infrared, and optical monitoring of YSOs, targeting the Coronet cluster in the Corona Australis star-forming region, which harbors at least one class 0 protostar, several class I objects, numerous T Tauri stars, and a few Herbig AeBe stars. Methods. In August 2005, we obtained five epochs of Chandra X-ray observations on nearly successive days accompanied by simultaneous radio observations at the NRAO Very Large Array during four epochs, as well as by simultaneous optical and near-infrared observations from ground-based telescopes in Chile and South Africa. Results. Seven objects are detected simultaneously in the X-ray, radio, and optical/infrared bands; they constitute our core sample. While most of these sources exhibit clear variability in the X-ray regime and several also display optical/infrared variability, none of them shows significant radio variability on the timescales probed. We also do not find any case of clearly time-correlated optical/infrared and X-ray variability. Remarkable intra-band variability is found for the class I protostar IRS 5 which shows much lower radio fluxes than in previous observations, and the Herbig Ae star R CrA, which displays enhanced X-ray emission during the last two epochs, but no time-correlated variations are seen for these objects in the other bands. The two components of S CrA vary nearly synchronously in the I band. Conclusions. The absence of time-correlated multi-wavelength variability suggests that there is no direct link between the X-ray and optical/infrared emission and supports the notion that accretion is not an important source for the X-ray emission of these YSOs. No significant radio variability was found on timescales of days.