A Census of Young Binary Stars and their Properties Kendra Kellogg Northern Arizona University Dr. Lisa Prato Lowell Observatory

Introduction Our goal: My job: To explore and better understand the properties of circumstellar disks in T Tauri binary systems My job: To organize and update a database containing these data and analyze them

Why young binaries? Most young stars are found in binary systems; sometimes triple or quadruple systems Young stars still have most of their disks starfieldobservatory.com

Why disks? nasa.gov spaceandtechnology.com Circumstellar or circumbinary disks are the beginnings of coalesced planetary systems like our own solar system

Data and analysis Used data from published papers Used IDL (Interactive Data Language)‏ for the analysis

Old Database

New Database

What are K, L and K-L? K (2.2μm)‏ L (3.4μm)‏ K-L colors show presence of dusty disk Furlan et al. 2006

Usage of Database Compared K-L colors of selected stars to the K-L colors from other data sets of the same stars Stars below 0.4 mag do not have disks and those above do have disks (Edwards et al. 1993)‏

Conclusions Results show that star systems and circumstellar disks change over time Padgett et al. 1999

Acknowlegements I would like to thank: Any Questions? Mentor - Dr. Lisa Prato Space Grant Director - Dr. Nadine Barlow NASA Space Grant Any Questions?