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# X-ray flares on zero-age- and pre-main sequence stars in Taurus-Auriga-Perseus

## 1 Introduction

The Taurus-Auriga-Perseus region offers the opportunity to study the X-ray emission of young stars at several evolutionary stages. The youngest stars observed by ROSAT in this portion of the sky are the T Tauri Stars (TTSs) of the Taurus-Auriga and Perseus star forming regions, late-type pre-main sequence (PMS) stars of $`M3\mathrm{M}_{}`$ with an estimated age of $`10^510^7\mathrm{yrs}`$. Two young star clusters, the Pleiades and Hyades, are also located in this region of the sky at age of $`10^8\mathrm{yrs}`$ and $`\mathrm{6\; 10}^8\mathrm{yrs}`$, respectively. They consist mostly of zero-age main-sequence (ZAMS) stars, except for some higher mass post-main sequence stars and brown dwarfs, which are not studied here.

From the early observations by the Einstein satellite it was concluded that the X-ray emission of young stars arises in an optically thin, hot plasma at temperatures above $`10^6\mathrm{K}`$ (Feigelson & DeCampli (1981)). The emission region has been associated with the stellar corona where the X-rays are produced — more or less analogous to the solar X-ray emission — through a stellar $`\alpha `$-$`\mathrm{\Omega }`$-dynamo. The dynamo is driven by the combination of rotation and convective motions. Correlations between the X-ray emission of late-type stars and the stellar rotation support the notion that dynamo-generated magnetic fields are responsible for heating the coronae (Pallavicini et al. (1981)). But successful direct measurements of the magnetic fields of TTSs have been performed only recently (see e.g. Guenther et al. (1999)). The details of the heating mechanism are still not well understood.

The correlation between stellar rotation and X-ray emission of late-type stars suggests that the rotational evolution of young stars determines the development of stellar activity. The rotational evolution of low-mass PMS stars partly depends on the circumstellar environment. While classical TTSs (hereafter cTTSs) are surrounded by a circumstellar disk, inferred from IR dust emission (Bertout et al. (1988), Strom et al. (1989), and Beckwith et al. (1990)) and more recently from direct imaging (e.g. McCaughrean & O’Dell (1996)), weak-line TTSs (wTTSs) lack such a disk, or at least the disk is not optically thick. Owing to contraction wTTSs spin up as they approach the main sequence. For cTTSs, on the other hand, coupling between the disk and the star may prevent spin-up (Bouvier et al. (1993)). The period observed on the ZAMS depends on the time the star has spent in the cTTS phase. After the main-sequence is reached, the rotation rate decreases again (see Bouvier et al. (1997a)). As a consequence of their slower rotation, stars on the ZAMS and main sequence (MS) should on average show less X-ray activity than PMS stars.

Earlier investigations of X-ray observations of young late-type stars were mostly concerned with the quiescent emission (see Neuhäuser et al. (1995), Stauffer et al. (1994), Gagn$`\stackrel{´}{\mathrm{e}}`$ et al. (1995), Hodgkin et al. (1995), Micela et al. (1996), 1999, Pye et al. (1994), and Stern et al. (1994)). In contrast to these studies we focus on the occurrence of X-ray flares. Furthermore we discuss a larger sample than most of the previous studies by using all currently available observations from the ROSAT Public Data Archive that contain any TTS, Pleiad or Hyad in the field of view.

X-ray flares may be used as a diagnostics of stellar activity. They are thought to originate in magnetic loops. In contrast to findings from quasi-static loop modeling, the only direct determination of the size of a flaring region (Schmitt & Favata (1999)) shows that the emitting region is very compact. In the loops which confine the coronal plasma magnetic reconnection suddenly frees large amounts of energy which is dissipated into heat and thus leads to a temporary enhancement of the X-ray emission. The decay of the lightcurve is accompanied by a corresponding (exponential) decay of the temperature and emission measure, which are obtained from one- or two-temperature spectral models for an optically thin, thermal plasma (Raymond & Smith (1977), Mewe et al. (1985), 1986).

The most powerful X-ray flares have been observed on the youngest objects, notably a flare on the infrared Class I protostar YLW 15 in $`\rho `$ Oph which has been presented by Grosso et al. (1997). X-ray flares on TTSs observed so far (see Montmerle et al. (1983), Preibisch et al. (1993), Strom & Strom (1994), Preibisch et al. (1995), Gagn$`\stackrel{´}{\mathrm{e}}`$ et al. (1995), Skinner et al. (1997), Tsuboi et al. (1998)) exceed the maximum emission observed from solar flares by a factor of $`10^3`$ and more. Some extreme events have shown X-ray luminosities of $`L_\mathrm{x}=10^{33}\mathrm{erg}/\mathrm{s}`$. Although some of the strongest X-ray flares ever observed were detected on TTSs to date no systematic search for TTS flares was undertaken.

This paper is devoted to a study of the relation between X-ray flare activity and other stellar parameters, such as age, rotation rate, and multiplicity. For this purpose we perform a statistical investigation of ROSAT observations. We develop a method for the flare detection based on our conception of the typical shape of a flare lightcurve, where the term ‘typical shape’ refers to the characteristics of the X-ray lightcurve described above, i.e. a significant rise and subsequent decay of the lightcurve to the previous emission level. The database and source detection is described in Sect. 2. In Sect. 3 we describe how the lightcurves are generated. Our flare detection algorithm is explained in Sect. 4, where we also present all flare parameters derived from the X-ray lightcurves. Then we describe the influence of observational restrictions on the data analysis and how the related biases can be overcome (Sect. 5). In Sect. 6 we compare the flare characteristics of different samples of flaring stars selected by their age, rotation rate, and multiplicity. We present luminosity functions for TTSs, Pleiads, and Hyads during flare and quiescence. Luminosity functions of the non-active state of these stars have been presented before (see e.g. Pye et al. (1994), Hodgkin et al. (1995), Neuhäuser (1997)) and some of the flares discussed here have been discussed by Gagn$`\stackrel{´}{\mathrm{e}}`$ et al. (1995), Strom & Strom (1994), and Preibisch et al. (1993). However, this is the first statistical evaluation of flare luminosities. Flare rates comparing stellar subgroups with different properties (such as age, $`v\mathrm{sin}i`$, and stellar multiplicity) are compiled in Sect. 7. Because of lack of sufficient statistics for a detailed spectral analysis, hardness ratios are used to describe the spectral properties of the flares. In Sect. 8 we present the observed relations between hardness ratios measured during different activity phases and between hardness and X-ray luminosity. Finally, we discuss and summarize our results in Sect. 9 and Sect. 10.

## 2 Database and data reduction

In this section we introduce the stellar sample and explain the analysis of the raw data. Details about our membership lists for TTSs, Pleiads, and Hyads are given below (Sect. 2.1). We have retrieved all pointed ROSAT PSPC observations from the archive that contain at least one of the stars from these lists in their field. The observations are listed in Table 1. After performing source detection on all of these pointings, we have cross correlated the membership lists with the detected X-ray sources and identified individual TTSs, Pleiads, and Hyads in the X-ray image. The process of source detection and identification is described in Sect. 2.2.

### 2.1 The stellar sample

The analysis presented here is confined to the Taurus-Auriga-Perseus region. This portion of the sky includes the Taurus-Auriga complex, the MBM 12 cloud, and the Perseus molecular clouds with the reflection nebula NGC 1333 and the young cluster IC 348. Two open clusters containing mostly ZAMS stars are found nearby the above mentioned star forming regions, the Pleiades and the Hyades. The choice of this specific sky region thus enables us to compare the X-ray emission of young stars at different ages.

Our sample of low-mass PMS stars in and around Taurus consists of all TTSs which are either on or very close to the Taurus star forming clouds or off the clouds at locations where they can still be linked with the Taurus clouds (see e.g. Neuhäuser et al. (1997)). We restrict our Taurus sample to objects between $`\alpha _{2000}=2h`$ and $`5h`$ and $`\delta _{2000}=10^{}`$ and $`40^{}`$. The TTSs in Taurus comprise those listed in the Herbig-Bell catalog (Herbig & Bell (1988); HBC), in Neuhäuser et al. (1995) or in Kenyon & Hartmann (1995). In addition we include TTSs newly identified either as counterparts to previously unidentified ROSAT sources (Strom & Strom (1994), Wichmann et al. (1996), Magazzù et al. (1997), Neuhäuser et al. (1997), Zickgraf et al. (1998), Li & Hu (1998), Briceño et al. (1998)) or by other means (Torres et al. (1995), Oppenheimer et al. (1997), Briceño et al. (1998), Reid & Hawley (1999), Gizis & Reid (1999)). TTSs in the molecular cloud MBM 12 (see Hearty et al. (2000)) are also in the examined sky region.

In addition to TTSs from Tau-Aur we include those from the Perseus molecular cloud complex, mainly IC 348 and NGC 1333, in our analysis. Our list of TTSs in IC 348 comprises X-ray detections identified with H$`\alpha `$ emission stars or with proper motion members (Tables 4 and 5 in Preibisch et al. (1996)), and emission line stars from Herbig (1998), and Luhman (1999). TTS members of NGC 1333 are listed in Preibisch (1997).

All objects with low lithium strength are excluded, because it is dubious whether they are young. We accept only those objects as PMS stars which show more lithium than Pleiades stars of the same spectral type, i.e. we exclude all those with $`W_\lambda `$(Li) lower than $`0.2`$ Å for F- and G-type stars and lower than $`0.3`$ Å for K-type stars. When applying this criterion, we always use the spectrum with the best resolution and best S/N, i.e. the high-resolution spectra from Wichmann et al. (in preparation). If no high-resolution spectra are available, we use the medium-resolution spectra from Martín & Magazzù (1999), Neuhäuser et al. (1997), or Magazzù et al. (1997).

Members of the Pleiades and Hyades clusters are selected from the Open Cluster database compiled by C. Prosser and collegues (available at http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/ $``$stauffer/opencl/index.html). The tables collected in Prosser’s database provide a summary of membership classification based on different methods, such as photometry, spectra, radial velocity and H$`\alpha `$ emission. In addition a final membership determination is given which we use to define our membership lists.

Fig. 1 shows a sky map with the positions of the selected PSPC observations.

### 2.2 Source detection and identification

Source detection is performed on all observations given in Table 1 and shown in Fig. 1 using a combined local and map source detection algorithm based on a maximum likelihood method (Cruddace et al. (1988)). All detections with $`ML7.4`$ (corresponding to $`3.5`$ Gaussian $`\sigma `$ determined as best choice by Neuhäuser et al. (1995)) are written to a source list, which is subsequently cross-correlated with the membership lists introduced above. The maximum distance $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ between optical and X-ray position to be allowed in this identification process depends on the off-axis angle of the source because the positional accuracy of the PSPC is worse at larger distances from the center due to broader point spread function (PSF). From distributions of the normalized cumulative number of identifications versus offset $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ for different off-axis ranges we have determined the optimum cross-correlation radius for all detector positions (similar to Neuhäuser et al. (1995)). A detailed description of this process together with a table providing $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ for different off-axis ranges will be given in Stelzer et al. (in preparation).

Observations which are characterized by strong background variations (200020, 200008-0, and 200442), as well as observations consisting of two very short intervals separated by a gap of $`>100\mathrm{h}`$ (200068-0, 200914) are omitted from the flare detection and flare analysis. Furthermore, we neglect observations with a total duration of less than 1000 s. All observations which have been ignored in the analysis presented in this paper are marked with an asterisk in Table 1.

## 3 Lightcurves

Using the arrival time information of the photons counted within a pre-defined source circle lightcurves are generated for each of the ROSAT sources that have been identified with a TTS, Pleiad or Hyad from the membership lists.

For the source extraction radius we have used the 99% quantile of the Point Spread Function (PSF) at 1 keV, i.e. the radius containing 99% of the 1 keV photons at the respective off-axis angle. In contrast to the standard EXSAS source radius of 2.5 FWHM, which becomes unreasonably large for off-axis sources due to the extended wings of the PSF, this choice of extraction radius limits the source size. Close to the detector center, some bright sources slightly overshine the nominal 99% quantile of the PSF probably due to small deviations from the assumed 1 keV spectrum. We have therefore checked all images for such bright sources and determined a larger source radius for these cases based on visual inspection. In crowded regions, where the PSF of several sources overlap, the measured counts are upper limits to the actual emission of the sources. None of the overlapping sources showed a flare, however, such that no further attention is drawn to the overestimation of the count rate in these cases.

The events measured within the circular source region are binned into 400 s intervals. Since the typical duration of a flare is less than one hour, significantly longer integration times would lead to a loss of information about the structure of the lightcurve, while for shorter bin lengths the lightcurves are dominated by the low statistics. Furthermore, the choice of 400 s integration time guarantees that no additional variability is introduced by the telescope motion (wobble).

Due to the earth eclipses the data stream is interrupted at periodical time intervals. Depending on the phase used for the time integration, at the beginning and/or end of each data segment the 400 s intervals are only partly exposed. For the flare detection only bins with full 400 s of exposure are used. To gain independence of the binning we generate lightcurves with different phasing of the 400 s intervals: First, in order to divide the given observing time into as many 400 s exposures as possible, a lightcurve is binned in such a way that a new 400 s interval starts after each observation gap. Thus, data are lost only at the end of each data segment, because the last bin remains uncomplete. Secondly, lightcurves are built by simply splitting the total observing time into 400 s intervals beginning from the start of the observation regardless of data gaps. In this case data are rejected at the beginning and end of each data segment.

The number of background counts falling in the source circle is determined from the smoothed background image which is created by cutting out the detected sources and then performing a spline fit to the resulting image. This method of background acquisition is of advantage in crowded fields where an annulus around the source position – the most widely used method for estimating the background – likely is contaminated by other sources. The background count rate is found by dividing the number of background counts in the source circle through the exposure time extracted from the standard ROSAT exposure map. To take account of possible time variations in the background count rate, the background is determined separately for each data segment and subtracted from the measured count rate in the respective data interval. (When referring to ‘data segments’ we mean parts of the lightcurve that are separated from each other by gaps of at least 0.5 h.)

## 4 Flare detection

### 4.1 The method

One of the major elements of a flare by customary definition is a significant increase in count rate, after which the initial level of intensity is reached again. Therefore, our flare detection is based on the deviation of the count rate from the (previously determined) mean quiescent level of the source. To ensure that the quiescent count rate contains no contribution from flares, in the first step, we determine mean count rates for all data segments of each lightcurve and define the quiescent level as the lowest mean measured in any of these data segments.

We define a flare as an event which is characterized by two or more consecutive time bins that constitute a sequence of either rising or falling count rates, corresponding to rise and decay phase of the flare. In addition, to ensure the significance of our flare detections, we define the upper standard deviation of the quiescent level as a point of reference and require that (a) all bins which are part of the flare are characterized by count rates higher than this level, and that (b) the sum of the deviations of all these bins is more than 5 $`\sigma `$ from this level. A rise immediately followed by a decay is counted as one flare. Since the shape of a lightcurve is influenced to some degree by the binning used, we accept only flares that are detected in lightcurves with both bin phasings (see Sect. 3).

Detections of more than one flare in a single lightcurve are possible. To estimate the contribution of each event properly, after detection the decay of the first flare in each lightcurve is modeled by an exponential function, and a new lightcurve is generated by subtracting the fit function from the data. Having removed the first flare, we search for further flares in the reduced, ‘flare-subtracted’ lightcurve using the same criteria as before. This procedure is repeated until no additional flares are detected.

Since many of the investigated sources are highly variable X-ray emitters on timescales shorter than resolvable by our method, the mean count rate used until now in some cases is not a good estimate for the quiescent emission. With the knowledge obtained about the times at which flares have occurred we therefore redetermine the quiescent count rate taking the mean from the remaining data after removal of all flare contributions. Using this new mean count rate we repeat the flare detection procedure.

### 4.2 Flare Parameters

With the detection procedure described in the previous subsection we have found 52 flares. We have always identified the nearest optical position with the X-ray source. In one flare, however, two possible optical counterparts, DD Tau and CZ Tau, are closeby (at 6′′ and 24′′ respectively), so that we can not be sure which star flared. Fifteen events were observed on TTSs, 20 on Pleiads, and 17 on Hyads. On two TTSs (RXJ 0437.5+1851 and T Tau) and two Hyads (VA 334 and VB 141) two flares occurred in the same observation. VB 141 showed a third event during a different ROSAT exposure.

Hyades stars above $`2\mathrm{M}_{}`$, that have already evolved off the main-sequence, are not considered in the statistical analysis if they showed a flare. Brown dwarfs in the Hyades and Pleiades are not on the main-sequence per definition, but they are also too faint for X-ray detection (Neuhäuser et al. (1999)). Thus we discuss only the ZAMS from the Pleiades and Hyades.

A complete list of all TTSs, Pleiads, and Hyads on which at least one flare was detected is given in Table 2. Column 1 gives the designation of the flaring star. Column 2 is the distance estimate used for the count-to-energy-conversion. For TTSs in Taurus-Auriga we adopt a value of $`140\mathrm{pc}`$ (Elias (1978), Wichmann et al. (1998)), while the TTSs in MBM 12 are located at $`65\mathrm{pc}`$ (Hearty et al. (2000)), and those in Perseus are located at $`350\mathrm{pc}`$ (NGC 1333; Herbig & Bell (1988)) and $`300\mathrm{pc}`$ (IC 348; Cernicharo et al. (1985)). Pleiads are assumed to be at a distance of $`116\mathrm{pc}`$, the value derived by Mermilliod et al. (1997). Finally, we use the individual Hipparcos parallaxes for Hyades stars if available, and otherwise the mean value of $`46\mathrm{pc}`$ (Perryman et al. (1998)). We give spectral type, $`v\mathrm{sin}i`$, multiplicity, and binary separation of the stars and their respective references in columns 3 – 9. For TTSs additional columns specify whether the star is a cTTS or a wTTS.

The lightcurves of all flares have been analyzed by fitting an exponential to the decay of each flare. In Figs. 23, and 4 the fit function and measured mean quiescent count rate are displayed together with the data. In Tables 34 and 5 we give the result of the modeling. Column 1 and column 2 contain the stellar identification of the X-ray source and the ROSAT observation request number (ROR). The mean quiescent count rate is given in column 3, the maximum count rate inferred from the exponential fit to the lightcurve in column 4, and the decay timescale $`\tau _{\mathrm{dec}}`$ from the fit in column 5. For flares with poor data sampling we did not determine the errors of $`\tau _{\mathrm{dec}}`$. Column 6 is the estimated rise time of the flare. Due to data gaps in most cases no reasonable estimate can be given. Luminosities are listed in columns 7 and 8: quiescent luminosity $`L_{\mathrm{qui}}`$, and maximum luminosity during the flare $`L_{\mathrm{max}}`$. We assume that all stars in the system contribute the same level of X-ray emission during quiescence, but that only one component flares at any one time. Therefore, for all multiple stars the observed quiescent count rate from column 3 has been divided by the number of components before the conversion to luminosity and energy.

For the conversion from count rates to luminosities we have used the mean ROSAT PSPC energy-conversion-factor (ECF) from Neuhäuser et al. (1995), i.e. $`ECF=1.110^{11}\mathrm{cts}\mathrm{cm}^2/\mathrm{erg}`$ and the distances given in Table 2. In order to eliminate uncertainties in the distance estimate we have computed ratios of luminosity (given in column 9). Here, $`L_\mathrm{F}`$ denotes the luminosity emitted during the flare, i.e. $`L_\mathrm{F}=L_{\mathrm{max}}L_{\mathrm{qui}}`$. The total emitted energy during quiescence $`E_{\mathrm{qui}}`$ (column 10) and during the flare alone $`E_\mathrm{F}`$ (column 11) are inferred from the integration of the lightcurve between $`t_{\mathrm{max}}`$ and $`t_{\mathrm{max}}+\tau `$. The last column gives the reference for flares that have been published previously. In the last two rows of Tables 34 and 5 we have listed the mean and median for each of the given parameters, except $`\tau _{\mathrm{ris}}`$ which is not well constrained. The means and medians have been computed with the ASURV Kaplan-Meier estimator (see Feigelson & Nelson (1985)), taking account of upper/lower limits. Lower limits of $`L_{\mathrm{max}}`$ occur when there is doubt about whether the maximum emission of the flare has been observed (due to a data gap near the observed maximum). Upper limits for $`\tau _{\mathrm{dec}}`$ occur when the decay is not observed because of a data gap between maximum and post-flare quiescent count rate. Both luminosity and decay timescale determine the flare energy, but the limits of these two parameters carry opposite signs. We therefore consider all values of $`E_\mathrm{F}`$ uncertain where $`\tau _{\mathrm{dec}}`$ or $`L_{\mathrm{max}}`$ are a limit (indicated by colons in Tables 34 and 5) and have not included them in the computation of the mean and median.

## 5 Observational selection effects

It is the purpose of this paper to compare the flare activity of different stars, and thus some attention has to be drawn to observational selection effects. In this section, we will discuss how observational restrictions influence the search for flares. At several points during the data analysis, we are confronted with the problem of finding a representation of the data which is free from these biases.

The major difficulty with the statistical evaluation of flares on different stars is that the sensitivity of the flare detection process depends on the measured (quiescent) count rate, which determines the signal-to-noise (S/N), and hence on the distance to the star. The observational bias consists in the fact that for bright stars ($`L_{\mathrm{qui}}`$ large) the minimum luminosity $`L_\mathrm{F}`$ of a detectable flare is higher than for a faint star. The result is, among others, that at first hand it can not be decided whether any observed correlation between $`L_{\mathrm{qui}}`$ and $`L_\mathrm{F}`$ is real or produced by this effect. In Fig. 5 we have plotted the flare luminosity $`L_\mathrm{F}`$ against the quiescent luminosity $`L_{\mathrm{qui}}`$.

The contribution of the observational bias to this correlation can be estimated as follows: For each quiescent count rate $`I_{\mathrm{qui}}`$ we can determine the minimum strength $`L_\mathrm{F}/L_{\mathrm{qui}}`$ needed for a flare to be detected, if we assume that a flare is found whenever there is a rise in count rate of at least 3 $`\sigma `$ within one 400 s time bin. (In our actual flare search we were even more conservative; see Sect. 4.) Hypothetical events of that kind obey a detection threshold curve for $`L_\mathrm{F}/L_{\mathrm{qui}}`$ as shown in Fig. 6. As mentioned above, the minimum flare luminosity needed for detection of a flare becomes larger with increasing quiescent brightness. In contrast, the required luminosity ratio, i.e. the relative strength of the events, decreases when $`I_{\mathrm{qui}}`$ increases. Note also, that the curve in Fig. 6 is distance independent. But the relation between $`L_{\mathrm{qui}}`$ and the corresponding minimum $`L_\mathrm{F}`$ of a detectable flare differs for stars at different distances. In Fig. 5 we have overplotted the theoretical threshold for detection of a flare on a star at 140 pc distance. Note, that the slope of the data in Fig. 5 is somewhat steeper than the increase of the threshold imposed by the S/N. This seems to indicate an intrinsic correlation between quiescent and flare luminosity. We have subtracted the theoretical threshold value for $`L_\mathrm{F}`$ from the observed flare luminosity for each of the stars from Fig. 5. Correlation tests for the difference between threshold and observed value for $`L_\mathrm{F}`$, $`(L_{\mathrm{F},\mathrm{theo}}L_{\mathrm{F},\mathrm{obs}})`$, with $`L_{\mathrm{qui}}`$ show that the correlation is of low significance, $`\alpha `$=0.05. The data points below the theoretical curve are all Pleiads or Hyads. They do not contradict the threshold curve, since Pleiades and Hyades stars are closer than 140 pc and therefore have a lower flare detection threshold.

## 6 Statistical comparison of the flaring stars

We present now a statistical analysis of the X-ray flares from Tables 34 and 5. A detailed discussion of the (quiescent) X-ray properties of all detected and undetected stars is postponed to a later paper (Stelzer et al., in preparation).

In this section, different flare parameters will be checked for dependence on age, circumstellar environment, and rotation rate (Sect. 6.26.36.4.) to see whether any of these properties has an effect on the characteristic luminosity and time scales of coronal activity. For the statistical comparison of the flaring stars the ASURV package version 1.2 (Feigelson & Nelson (1985)) was used.

First we compare the flaring populations of TTSs, Pleiads, and Hyads concerning their effective temperatures. We have converted spectral types to effective temperatures using the conversion given in Kenyon & Hartmann (1995) for PMS stars earlier than M0, and Luhman (1999) for PMS M-type stars intermediate between dwarfs and giants. For Pleiades and Hyades stars we have used the conversion of Schmidt-Kaler (1982). We have applied two-sample tests to each pair of $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$-distributions to reveal possible differences between flaring stars of the three groups. Henceforth, we denote the probability that the distributions are similar by $`\alpha `$. In all but one of the comparisons we found $`\alpha >0.2`$, and therefore no significant differences in $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$. The exception is the logrank test between TTSs and Hyads where $`\alpha =0.03`$.

Most flares occurred on G, K and M stars. However, some events were observed on A and F stars. Stars of intermediate spectral type, lacking both a convection-driven dynamo and a strong stellar wind, seem to have no efficient mechanism to generate X-ray flares. Therefore, it is often assumed that X-ray emission apparently seen on A or B stars, can be attributed to an (unknown) late-type companion (see e.g. Stauffer et al. (1994), Gagn$`\stackrel{´}{\mathrm{e}}`$ & Caillault (1994), Panzera et al. (1999)). The same arguments can be applied to explain X-ray flares on these stars. In any case, the emission mechanism of early-type stars is different from that of late-type stars. From the sharp onset of rotation-activity relations in dwarf stars Walter (1983) has argued that the onset of solar-like dynamo activity occurs abruptly at about spectral type F5. To ensure that no stars with X-ray generation mechanisms other than stellar dynamos are included, we have excluded the stars of spectral type F and earlier from the statistical analysis presented in this paper, i.e. we have restricted the flare sample to events on G, K, and M stars. This limitation provides samples which have similar $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ distributions, i.e. $`\alpha >0.2`$ also for the two-sample test between TTSs and Hyads (see Table 6 for the detailed results). This justifies to combine all flaring late-type stars for the statistical analysis. In the following the stellar sample is restricted to G, K, and M stars. If not explicitly mentioned the two flares on known white-dwarf systems (on V471 Tau and VA 673) are excluded from the sample, since the white dwarf could be responsible for the X-ray event instead of its late-type companion.

### 6.1 Flare frequency of MS stars and spectral type

It is interesting to ask whether the depth of the convection zone has any influence on the occurrence of surface flares. Since the relative size of the convection zone increases for later spectral types, the distribution of flares onto stars of different spectral types may help to solve this question. What we really want to check is whether the flare frequency depends on stellar mass, which corresponds to spectral type on the MS. Because PMS stars still evolve through the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram (HRD), i.e. change their spectral type, we exclude the TTSs from this part of the analysis. Flaring Pleiades and Hyades stars are combined to increase the sample size.

We have studied the spectral type distribution of flares by comparing the number of flares on stars of a certain spectral type to the total number of detected stars of that spectral type. The detection sensitivity for flares of a given strength $`L_\mathrm{F}/L_{\mathrm{qui}}`$ is different for each star because it depends on the level of quiescent emission $`I_{\mathrm{qui}}`$ (see Sect. 5). $`I_{\mathrm{qui}}`$, depends on the spectral type of the star. For this reason, a simple comparison between numbers of flares and numbers of detected stars of each spectral type would be misleading. The observational bias can, however, be eliminated if the numbers (of flares and detections) are evaluated above a certain threshold $`L_\mathrm{F}/L_{\mathrm{qui}}`$. We compare the number of flares with measured luminosity ratio above a critical value $`(L_\mathrm{F}/L_{\mathrm{qui}})_{\mathrm{crit}}`$ to the number of detected stars for which $`I_{\mathrm{qui}}`$ exceeds the minimum value needed for detection of a flare of that critical strength. We have compiled these numbers for a reasonable range of values $`L_\mathrm{F}/L_{\mathrm{qui}}`$, and show the result in Fig. 7. Plotted are the number of flares exceeding $`L_\mathrm{F}/L_{\mathrm{qui}}`$ divided by the number of detected stars that are bright enough for detection of flares with that value of $`L_\mathrm{F}/L_{\mathrm{qui}}`$. G stars clearly show the smallest rate of events throughout all of the observed range of flare strengths.

### 6.2 Age of flaring stars (Luminosity functions)

To study how the flare activity of young late-type stars evolves with stellar age we have computed luminosity distribution functions (LDF) and performed two-sample tests for three subsamples of stars: TTSs, Pleiads, and Hyads.

Maximum likelihood distributions for TTSs, Pleiads, and Hyads are presented in Fig. 8 for both flare luminosity $`L_\mathrm{F}`$ and mean luminosity during the quiescent part of flare observations $`L_{\mathrm{qui}}`$. Note, that Fig. 8 (b) contains no upper limits because only stars which have shown a flare are included, and $`L_{\mathrm{qui}}`$ during flare observations can be extracted from the lightcurves. The flare luminosity in Fig. 8 (a) includes upper limits. Since $`L_\mathrm{F}=L_{\mathrm{max}}L_{\mathrm{qui}}`$, upper limits for $`L_{\mathrm{max}}`$ (see Table 34, and 5) translate to upper limits for $`L_\mathrm{F}`$. LDFs for all non-flaring stars (detections and non-detections) will be shown elsewhere (Stelzer et al., in preparation).

Two-sample tests were applied to each pair of LDFs to search for differences. The results are given in Table 7 (for $`L_\mathrm{F}`$ and $`L_{\mathrm{qui}}`$). The null hypothesis of two samples being the same is rejected for all pairs of flare luminosity distributions at significance levels $`\alpha <0.05`$. The quiescent luminosity of flaring TTSs is different from both the quiescent luminosity of flaring Pleiads and flaring Hyads. Usually the quiescent luminosity functions of Pleiades and Hyades stars are also found to be distinct (see e.g. Caillault (1996)). However, we find no difference ($`\alpha >0.61`$) between the quiescence luminosities of the flaring stars in these two clusters. Using the relation between $`I_{\mathrm{qui}}`$ and the threshold for $`L_\mathrm{F}/L_{\mathrm{qui}}`$ (see Fig. 6) we have determined that more than 90% of the detected Hyades stars are bright enough for detection of a flare whose strength $`L_\mathrm{F}/L_{\mathrm{qui}}`$ is equal to the mean observed for flares on late-type Hyads, i.e. $`L_\mathrm{F}/L_{\mathrm{qui}}=4.527`$. The fact that mostly X-ray bright Hyades stars display flaring activity is therefore not a selection effect. Instead, flaring Hyads indeed are overluminous compared to the non-flaring Hyades stars detected by the ROSAT PSPC.

The mean luminosities of TTSs, Pleiads, and Hyads and their standard deviations derived with inclusion of upper limits are given in Table 8.

### 6.3 Flaring cTTSs and wTTSs

So far we have not distinguished between cTTSs and wTTSs, because it is a matter of debate whether all cTTSs are younger than wTTSs. However, they are clearly distinguished by their circumstellar environment. The disks of cTTSs may influence flare activity. We have, therefore, compared cTTSs and wTTSs with respect to several flare parameters (see Table 9 for the results). Significant differences are found in the flare luminosity $`L_\mathrm{F}`$ and relative strength of the flare $`L_\mathrm{F}/L_{\mathrm{qui}}`$. The decay timescale does not depend on the type of TTS. The values given in Table 9 have been derived from all flares on TTSs except the one on DD Tau / CZ Tau. DD Tau is a cTTS binary and CZ Tau a wTTS binary. The four stars are not resolved in the PSPC image. It is therefore impossible to classify this flare concerning the type of TTS. We have performed two further series of two-sample tests in which the event is included. In one of these series of tests the flare is attributed to DD Tau, and the other time to CZ Tau. The significance of the results did not change.

The mean flare and quiescent luminosities of cTTSs and wTTSs are given in Table 8. cTTSs, although characterized by lower quiescent emission, show stronger flares than wTTSs.

### 6.4 $`v\mathrm{sin}i`$ of the flaring stars

Stellar rotation is one of the necessary conditions for magnetic activity. We have, therefore, examined the influence of the stellar rotation rate on the characteristics of X-ray flares. The relation between flare parameters and projected rotational velocity, $`v\mathrm{sin}i`$, is shown in Fig. 9.

The statistical significance for correlations between some flare parameters and $`v\mathrm{sin}i`$ is given in Table 10 (columns 2 and 3). The weak correlation between luminosity, both $`L_\mathrm{F}`$ and $`L_{\mathrm{qui}}`$, and $`v\mathrm{sin}i`$ is significant. The decay time $`\tau _{\mathrm{dec}}`$ and the relative flare strength $`L_\mathrm{F}/L_{\mathrm{qui}}`$, on the other hand, are not related to $`v\mathrm{sin}i`$.

We have studied the flaring population in terms of differences in flare characteristics between slow and fast rotators. The boundary was set to 20 km/s because this choice gives two samples of about equal size: 16 slow and 12 fast rotators showed an X-ray flare. Stars from Tables 34, and 5 for which no measurement of $`v\mathrm{sin}i`$ is available are ignored. The result of two sample tests for the parameters $`L_\mathrm{F}`$, $`L_{\mathrm{qui}}`$, $`\tau _{\mathrm{dec}}`$, and $`L_\mathrm{F}/L_{\mathrm{qui}}`$ are presented in the remaining columns of Table 10. In no case the null hypothesis that slow and fast rotators are drawn from the same distribution was rejected at significance level $`\alpha <0.05`$.

## 7 Flare rates

In this section, we will derive flare rates as a means to determine the activity level for a stellar sample with distinct properties. The characteristic properties which will be examined are (a) stellar age (comparing TTSs, Pleiads, and Hyads), (b) stellar rotation (comparing slow and fast rotators), and (c) stellar multiplicity (comparing close binaries to other stars). Flare rates will be computed separately for each group of stars.

We assume that the duration of the active state is represented by the decay timescale $`\tau _{\mathrm{dec}}`$, i.e. the generally poorly restricted rise times $`\tau _{\mathrm{ris}}`$ are neglected. This is certainly wrong for the flare on hcg 144 which seems to have a somehow reversed character (slow rise and rapid decay). However, hcg 144 is a star of unknown spectral type and therefore not part of the group to be examined here. To compile the flare rates, $`F=(\tau _i)/T_{\mathrm{obs}}`$, we have added up the decay timescales $`\tau _{\mathrm{dec}}`$ of the flares and divided this sum by the total observing time, $`T_{\mathrm{obs}}`$, of all detections (flaring and non-flaring stars). Only the nearest identification of each X-ray source has been considered in the compilation of $`T_{\mathrm{obs}}`$. But for multiple systems we have multiplied the observing time by the number of components. For the compilation of $`T_{\mathrm{obs}}`$ we have eliminated data gaps larger than 1 h, the typical flare duration. This provides us the fraction of the total observing time during which the stars are observed in the active state.

In practice $`(\tau _i)`$ is computed from the sample mean $`\overline{\tau }`$ returned by ASURV’s Kaplan-Meier estimator. This way we ensure that upper limits to $`\tau _{\mathrm{dec}}`$ are taken into account. The Kaplan-Meier estimator returns also the uncertainty of $`\overline{\tau }`$. To include the spread of the data in the estimation of $`F`$ we have converted this uncertainty of the mean to the sample variance $`\sigma _\tau `$. Consequently:

$$F=\frac{\overline{\tau }N}{T_{\mathrm{obs}}}\pm \frac{\sigma _\tau \sqrt{N}}{T_{\mathrm{obs}}}$$
(1)
### 7.1 Flare rate and stellar age

The evolution of flare rates with stellar age is examined by comparing the flare frequency of TTSs to that of the Pleiades and the Hyades. 15 flares have occurred on TTSs, 14 on late-type Pleiads, and 11 on late-type Hyads. We have derived the following values for the flare rate $`F`$: $`0.86\pm 0.16`$% (TTSs), $`0.67\pm 0.13`$% (Pleiads), and $`0.86\pm 0.32`$% (Hyads). When the white-dwarf binaries are excluded the flare rate for Hyades declines to $`F_{\mathrm{H},\mathrm{noWD}}=0.71\pm 0.30`$%.

The flare rates are biased for several reasons which will be explained next. First, the flare detection limit is determined by the S/N, which in turn depends on the distance to the star. Therefore, flare rates of TTSs, Pleiads, and Hyads are only comparable above a limiting minimum strength of the flare, expressed by a threshold $`L_\mathrm{F}/L_{\mathrm{qui}}`$. And, secondly, incomplete data sampling might lead to wrong conclusions about the decay timescale of individual events and thus contaminate the resulting $`F`$.

To solve the first problem we have scaled the quiescent count rate of all flaring stars to a distance of 140 pc, the distance of most of the TTSs. I.e. we have multiplied all quiescent count rates with a factor $`(\frac{d}{140pc})^2`$. These theoretical values of $`I_{\mathrm{qui}}`$ correspond to higher flare detection thresholds $`L_\mathrm{F}/L_{\mathrm{qui}}`$ for all stars except the ones in Perseus. All flares from Perseus stars would be detected at 140 pc, since they are further away than this distance. The observed luminosity ratios of all flaring stars have then been compared to the theoretical threshold needed if the star were at 140 pc. All flares for which the observed value is below this requirement should be neglected when the flare rates are computed. It turns out that all flares on Pleiads remain above the 140 pc threshold. But only 7 out of 11 flares on Hyads (one of the 7 is a white-dwarf system) have $`L_\mathrm{F}/L_{\mathrm{qui}}`$ high enough to be detected at a distance of 140 pc. Now the comparison of our different samples is free from the sensitivity bias. And we derive flare rates $`F`$ of $`0.86\pm 0.16`$% (TTSs), $`0.67\pm 0.13`$% (Pleiads), and $`0.46\pm 0.19`$% (Hyads). Without the white-dwarf binary $`F`$ decreases for the Hyades to $`0.32\pm 0.17`$%.

The uncertainties in the measurement of the flare duration are less easy to overcome. The large flare rate of TTSs is partially due to two extraordinary long events of duration $`>8\mathrm{h}`$ (see Table 3). The decay times of both of these flares are considered to be an upper limit. If these two events are discarded from the sample of flares, $`F_{\mathrm{TTS}}=0.74\pm 0.14`$%.

We have also compiled $`F`$ for cTTSs and wTTSs separately to see whether the circumstellar environment has any influence on the frequency of the flare activity. Among the events on TTSs, 6 are observed on cTTSs and 8 on wTTSs. An additional flare was seen from the unresolved stars DD Tau / CZ Tau. The classification of this event within the subgroups of TTSs remains therefore unclear, and complicates the comparison of $`F`$ for the two classes of TTSs. At first, the event on DD Tau / CZ Tau has been eliminated from the sample, thus that 6 flares on cTTSs are opposed to 8 flares on wTTSs. The respective flare rates are $`F_\mathrm{c}=1.09\pm 0.39`$% and $`F_\mathrm{w}=0.65\pm 0.16`$%. When the ambiguous event is counted on the side of the cTTSs $`F_\mathrm{c}`$ rises to $`1.28\pm 0.37`$%. When it is attributed to the wTTS CZ Tau instead, $`F_\mathrm{w}`$ becomes $`0.76\pm 0.16`$%. Note, that even though the number of flares on wTTSs is higher than the number of flares on cTTSs, the flare rate for wTTSs is lower than the flare rate for cTTSs. This is possible because of differences in the total observing time.

$`F`$ as a function of stellar age is displayed in Fig. 10. The decline of the flare rate with stellar age is obvious. Rates for cTTSs and wTTSs are symbolized by diamonds and triangles, respectively. The location of the lower diamond and triangle describes the flare rates without the event on DD Tau / CZ Tau. The upper diamond and triangle are values for $`F`$ if this flare is included in the respective group of TTSs.

### 7.2 Flare rate and rotational velocity

Here we examine whether the flare frequency depends on rotation. This is done by computing $`F`$ (defined as before) for fast rotators on the one hand ($`v\mathrm{sin}i>20\mathrm{km}/\mathrm{s}`$) and slow rotators on the other hand ($`v\mathrm{sin}i<20\mathrm{km}/\mathrm{s}`$). Again, only late-type stars are considered. The resulting rates are $`F_{\mathrm{slow}}=0.55\pm 0.10`$% and $`F_{\mathrm{fast}}=1.55\pm 0.38`$%. Thus there is a clear trend towards an increase of flare activity with increasing rotational velocity.

### 7.3 Flare rate and multiplicity

Another interesting question is whether the circumstellar surroundings have any influence on the flare frequency. The coronal activity may e.g. change if there are interactions between the magnetic fields of binaries. Such interactions are expected to take place only in close binaries. To search for such a connection we, therefore, discriminate between spectroscopic binaries on the one hand and all others, i.e. singles or visual multiples. The flare rate $`F`$ is computed in the same way as before. Since the observation time of each stellar system has been multiplied by the number of components, the flare rates should be about equal for both samples if the underlying physics are the same. However, we find that the flare rate of spectroscopic binaries is enhanced by more than a factor of two: $`F_{\mathrm{non}\mathrm{SB}}=0.64\pm 0.12`$% and $`F_{\mathrm{SB}}=1.43\pm 0.25`$%. Note, that the study of individual flare parameters (similar to the analysis of Sect. 6) has shown no difference for these two samples.

## 8 Hardness Ratios

For most of the flaring sources not enough counts are collected by the PSPC to compare the different levels of X-ray emission in a detailed spectral analysis. Therefore, we use hardness ratios to mark spectral changes. ROSAT PSPC hardness ratios are defined by:

$$HR\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}=\frac{HS}{H+S}HR\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}=\frac{H_2H_1}{H_2H_1}$$
(2)
where $`S`$, $`H`$, $`H_1`$, and $`H_2`$ denote the count rates in the ROSAT PSPC soft (0.1-0.4 keV), hard (0.5-2.0 keV), hard1 (0.5-0.9 keV) and hard2 (0.9-2.0 keV) band respectively. For each flare observation $`HR\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}`$ and $`HR\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}`$ are computed for three activity stages representing the quiescent state (pre- and post-flare), the rise and the decay, respectively. Sometimes no counts are measured in one or more of the energy bands. Whenever this is the case we have derived upper limits for the hardness ratio making use of the background counts in that energy band at the source location.

The observed hardness ratios, $`HR\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}1}`$ and $`HR\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}`$, are plotted in Fig. 11. The plots comparing quiescent and flare state show marginal evidence that most of the stars lie below the diagonal in the hardness plot (see lower left panel of Fig. 11) and thus are harder during the flare intervals as compared to their quiescence. No significant difference in hardness is observed between flare rise and flare decay. When impulsive heating takes place before the outburst the plasma cools quickly by radiation and conduction to the chromosphere. Therefore, the similar hardness observed during rise and decay phase suggests that heating takes place throughout the decay.

To quantify the differences in hardness between different flare stages we have computed mean hardness ratios for each of the stellar groups. In Table 11 we show the mean hardness for each activity stage (quiescence, rise, and decay) and each sample of stars (TTSs, Pleiads, and Hyads). The hardness changes systematically when the three groups are compared to each other: TTSs display the hardest spectra, followed by Pleiads, which in turn are characterized by higher hardness ratios than the Hyades stars. This is also manifest in the hardness plots of Fig. 11 where the three samples occupy different regions. In Sect. 6.2 it was shown that the flare luminosity declines with stellar age. As a consequence, the spectral hardness and the flare luminosity are correlated. The relation between hardness ratios and $`L_\mathrm{F}`$ is displayed in Fig. 12 and suggests that the more luminous flares are associated with hotter plasma.

## 9 Discussion

### 9.1 Methods for flare detection

Using binned data to detect flares introduces observational restrictions. The sensitivity for detection of small flares is lower and very short flares remain unobserved due to the time binning. Apart from these limitations, our flare detection produces reliable results as verified by comparison to both an alternative approach using Bayesian statistics and, where possible, previous detections of flares by visual inspection stated in the literature.

The importance of Bayesian statistics to astronomical time series analysis has been described by Scargle (1998) and first applied to ROSAT observations of flare stars by Hambaryan et al. (1999). This approach, unlike the ‘classical’ method used here, works on the raw, unbinned data and therefore has a time resolution which is only limited by the instrument clock.

We have performed a detailed comparison of the events recognized by the two methods. For the flare detection with the Bayesian algorithm the prior odds ratio, $`O_{\mathrm{pri}}`$, was set to 1. This means that at the beginning one-rate and two-rate Poisson processes are assumed to have the same probability for being the correct description of the data set. The significance of any detection of variability is then given by the value of the posterior odds ratio, $`O_{21}`$. Applied to our data, 62 events are found at the $`5\sigma `$ level, and 95 events have $`O_{21}`$ corresponding to at least $`3\sigma `$. All but 5 of the flares discussed in this paper were among the $`5\sigma `$ detections. The remaining ones are detected at $`>3\sigma `$. But note that with the Bayesian method we find variability in 182 lightcurves (in contrast to our 52 flares).

Although the Bayesian approach is sensitive to short events, we have persisted on the criteria explained in Sect. 4.1 for two reasons: (i) While Bayesian statistics are sensitive to all kinds of temporal variability, we are here interested in large flare events only. This makes an additional selection process necessary. (ii) Comparison with the classical flare search used in this paper has shown that the Bayesian method needs further refinement. E.g. the outcome of the present algorithm used to search for flares depends sensitively on the value of the prior odds ratio.

### 9.2 Interpretation of the results

Before flares on different stellar groups are compared, it must be checked whether the composition of these samples is similar. The X-ray luminosity of MS stars depends on their spectral type. Therefore it would be desirable to separately investigate the flare activity from stars of different spectral types. However this is hindered by the low flare statistics. We have performed statistical tests where the flaring TTSs, Pleiads, and Hyads have been compared regarding to their $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ and hence spectral types. These tests have shown that it is justified to jointly analyse flares on all late-type stars, i.e. stars with spectral type G, K, and M.

We have shown that the relative number of flares increases when going from spectral types G to K (see Fig. 7). Hereby, we have taken into account that the detection sensitivity for flares depends on the level of measured quiescent emission and hence on the spectral type. An interpretation is that deeper convection zones are favorable to the occurrence of surface flares.

#### 9.2.1 Age

We found that in terms of absolute flare luminosity and energy output TTSs surpass both Pleiads and Hyads. The mean flare luminosity of TTSs ($`L_{\mathrm{F},\mathrm{TTS}}=\mathrm{1.13\; 10}^{31}\mathrm{erg}/\mathrm{s}`$) is almost an order of magnitude higher than that for Hyads ($`L_{\mathrm{F},\mathrm{Hya}}=\mathrm{1.15\; 10}^{30}\mathrm{erg}/\mathrm{s}`$). The mean Pleiades flare luminosity is intermediate between that for TTSs and Hyades stars with $`L_{\mathrm{F},\mathrm{Ple}}=\mathrm{3.26\; 10}^{30}\mathrm{erg}/\mathrm{s}`$ (see also Fig. 5 and Table 8). This is partly due to the different distances of our stellar samples which result in different detection sensitivities for flares. Note, however, that this effect can explain only why no events with small $`L_\mathrm{F}`$ are observed on TTSs. But the lack of large events on Hyades stars is real. In Sect. 7 flare rates for TTSs, Pleiads, and Hyads have been established from an evaluation of the observed flare durations and the total observing time. Both, flare rate and mean flare luminosity decline with increasing stellar age.

The quiescent luminosity of Hyades stars which showed a flare is larger than the average $`L_{\mathrm{qui}}`$ of Hyads (see Sect. 6.2). More than $`90`$% of the detected Hyades stars are bright enough for detection of an average Hyads flare. Therefore, this result is not a selection effect, and we can conclude that only the most X-ray luminous Hyades stars exhibit X-ray flares. The interesting question whether the enhanced X-ray luminosity of flaring Hyades stars can be explained by their rotation rate can not be pursued with this set of data, because only for half of the flaring Hyades stars measurements of $`v\mathrm{sin}i`$ are available.

#### 9.2.2 Circumstellar Envelope

If magnetic interactions between star and disk take place, the field lines will constantly become twisted by differential rotation (Montmerle et al. (2000)). This may provide an environment favorable for magnetic reconnection and related flare activity.

Six of the observed flare events can be attributed to cTTSs and 8 events to wTTSs. One of the flares on TTSs occurred either on DD Tau, a cTTS, or on CZ Tau, a wTTS, both of which are not resolved in the ROSAT PSPC observations. Two-sample tests show clear indications that flares on cTTSs are more X-ray luminous than those on wTTSs (see Table 7). This holds no matter on which side the ambiguous event is counted. The flare rate is also slightly higher for cTTSs than for wTTSs, however with low significance. Given the fact that quiescent X-ray emission of wTTSs is stronger than in cTTSs, this observation is surprising. A possible interpretation is that the stronger flare events on cTTSs may be due to violent interaction with their disks.

#### 9.2.3 Multiple Flares

During four observations a second flare followed the first one (see lightcurves of VA 334, VB 141, RXJ 0437.5+1851B, and T Tau in Figs. 2 and 4). From the number of observed flares and the total observing time the average duration between two flare events is estimated to be $`>100\mathrm{h}`$. Therefore, from a statistical point of view it is very unlikely to observe so many unrelated ‘double events’. We note, that double flares have been reported in the optical. And Guenther & Ball (1999) have presented two flares that occurred within a few hours from the wTTS V819 Tau.

A possible interpretation of multiple flares is the star-disk scenario proposed by Montmerle et al. (2000) and mentioned in the previous subsection. However, this model does not seem to be accurate for our objects, which are more evolved and in part are known not to possess disks.

#### 9.2.4 Projected Rotational Velocity

The statistical tests we have performed to discriminate between slow and fast rotators (with boundary drawn at 20 km/s) reveal no dependence of individual flare parameters $`L_\mathrm{F}`$, $`L_{\mathrm{qui}}`$, $`\tau _{\mathrm{dec}}`$, and $`L_\mathrm{F}/L_{\mathrm{qui}}`$ on the rotation rate. However, the flare frequency is about three times higher for fast rotators as compared to slow rotators: $`F_{\mathrm{slow}}=0.55\pm 0.10`$% and $`F_{\mathrm{fast}}=1.55\pm 0.38`$%.

#### 9.2.5 Binary Interactions

We have searched for evidence of binary interaction during X-ray flares by dividing our sample of flares into spectroscopic binaries and all other systems, i.e. wide (or visual) multiples and single stars, in which such interactions can not take place. The comparison of flare rates $`F`$ showed that large X-ray flares are significantly more frequent on spectroscopic binaries: $`F_{\mathrm{SB}}=1.43\pm 0.25`$% and $`F_{\mathrm{non}\mathrm{SB}}=0.64\pm 0.12`$%. We have taken account of all components in multiple systems when evaluating the flare rate. Therefore, the difference in $`F`$ between close binaries and other stars seems indeed to indicate that magnetic interactions within close binaries leads to increased flare activity. But note, that interbinary events are expected to have longer durations because of the larger scale of the magnetic configuration. Our statistical observations did not show an increase of the time scales for spectroscopic binaries.

#### 9.2.6 Spectral signatures during flares

From the lower panels of Fig. 11 it can be concluded that for most of the observed events the spectral hardness has increased during the flare. Due to the large uncertainties, however, the changes in the mean hardness are only marginal. But, note, that the uncertainties represent the standard deviation (computed by taking into account upper/lower limits to the hardness) and thus reproduce the spread in the data.

We think that the X-ray emission of TTSs is harder than that of Pleiades and Hyades stars (see Table 11) for two reasons: (i) Because of their circumstellar envelope TTSs suffer from much stronger absorption than Pleiads and Hyads, and absorption is stronger for Pleiads than for Hyads due to the larger distance of the former, (ii) the younger the stars, the stronger the activity, and therefore the harder the spectrum.

## 10 Conclusions

We have determined flare rates for PMS stars, Pleiades and Hyades on a large data set and found that all stars are observed during flares for less than 1% of the observing time. Both frequency and strength of large X-ray flares decline after the PMS phase.

To probe whether the activity changes in the presence of a circumstellar disk, e.g. as a result of magnetic interactions between the star and the disk, we have compared flares on cTTSs and wTTSs. We find that flares on cTTSs are stronger and more frequent.

A comparison of flares on spectroscopic binaries to flares on all other stars of our sample shows that the flare rate is by a factor of $`2`$ higher for the close binaries.

The flare rate of fast rotators is enhanced by a factor of $``$ 3 as compared to slowly rotating stars.

To summarize, our analysis confirms that age and rotation influence the magnetic activity of late-type stars. All previous studies in this field have focused on the quiescent X-ray emission. Now, for the first time the rotation-activity-age connection has been examined for X-ray flares. Furthermore, from the sample of flares investigated here we find evidence that magnetic activity goes beyond solar-type coronal activity: On young stars interactions between the star and a circumstellar disk or the magnetic fields of close binary stars may play a role.

###### Acknowledgements.

We made use of the Open Cluster Database, compiled by C.F. Prosser and J.R. Stauffer. We thank S. Wolk and W. Brandner for useful discussions and an anonymous referee for valuable comments. RN acknowledges grants from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (Schwerpunktprogramm ‘Physics of star formation’). The ROSAT project is supported by the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft and Germany’s federal government (BMBF/DLR).


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# Optical Counterparts to Damped Lyman Alpha Systems

## 1. Summary

We have used the Semi Analytic Models (SAMs) of Somerville & Primack (1999) to determine the distribution of galaxies in a dark matter halo, and the amount of cold gas in each galaxy. The SAMs also contain the star formation history of each galaxy so we can explore the optical properties of the galaxies in the halos that give rise to DLAS. Here we present results on the optical counterparts from the two models discussed in Maller (1999), in which we matched the kinematic data with thicker and less radially extended, or thinner, more radially extended gas disks. We show both models here only to demonstrate that the optical properties are not highly sensitive to the details of the gas modeling. We only refer to optical counterparts that reside in the same virialized halo that produces the DLAS. The contribution of LBGs in neighboring dark matter halos will be explored in future work, but is expected to be relatively unimportant.

The properties of the optical counterparts will place strong constraints on DLAS models. One constraint is the number of DLAS with optical counterparts. Figure 1a shows the distribution that we see in our models. Eighty percent of DLAS do not have an optical counterpart with $`<25.5`$, while a rare five percent contain two or more such galaxies in the same halo. Lastly we show the distribution of optical impact parameter (Figure 1b) in our models. The optical impact parameter is the physical distance between the line of sight to the quasar and the centroid of the light distribution of the LBG. We obtain a broad distribution of optical impact parameter values in our model. Because of the large radial extent of our gas disks, the DLAS are often many stellar disk scale lengths from the center of the light distribution. Also in the MDM scenario, with many galaxies in a single halo, sometimes the galaxy bright enough to be identified as an optical counterpart is not one of the galaxies giving rise to the DLAS: in this case very large separations are possible. Thus we expect the predictions about the optical impact parameter to be unique to the multiple disk model, and a useful way of distinguishing it from other models.

## References

Djorgovski, S. G. 1997, in Structure and Evolution of the Intergalactic Medium from QSO Absorption Line System, Proceedings of the 13th IAP Astrophysics Colloquium (Paris: Editions Frontieres), 303

Kauffmann, G. 1996, MNRAS, 281, 475

Maller, A. H. 1999, PhD thesis, Univ. California, Santa Cruz

Maller, A. H., Somerville, R. S., Prochaska, J. X. & Primack, J. R. 1999, in After the Dark Ages: When Galaxies were Young, ed. S. Holt & E. Smith (AIP Press), 102

Prochaska, J. X. & Wolfe, A. M. 1998, ApJ, 507, 113

Somerville, R. S. & Primack, J. R. 1999, MNRAS, in press


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# New 𝛾 Doradus Stars from the Hipparcos Mission and Geneva Photometry

## 1. Introduction

The $`\gamma `$ Dor stars have amplitude variations up to 0.1 mag in Johnson V and periods ranging from 0.4 to 3 days (Kaye, these proceedings). We searched in two databases for finding new members of this class of variable stars. The first one is the Hipparcos main mission photometric database. It contains a mean of 110 measurements for 118 204 stars brighter than 12.4 and is magnitude complete up to 7.3-7.9 depending on the galactic latitude $`b`$. As the sampling is ruled by the scanning law of the satellite, it is not affected by the aliasing around 1/day, which might be a problem for detecting $`\gamma `$ Dor stars.

The second scanned database is the Geneva photometric catalogue (Burki & Kienzle, these proceedings), it counts 48 000 stars and 345 000 measurements in a seven colour system. The content of the Geneva catalogue is the reunion of more than 200 scientific programmes, including namely the Bright Star Catalogue south of $`\delta <+20`$.

## 2. Hipparcos main mission

Thousands new variable stars were discovered by the Hipparcos satellite. During the analysis of the Hipparcos photometry, stars from the Periodic Catalogue having accurate parallaxes and colours were plotted in the HR diagram (Eyer 1998). A clump of stars just at the cool lower edge of the $`\delta `$ Scuti instability strip was present and gave rise to a list of 15 candidates (excluding redundant cases from the other studies). A clump is also present when plotting the variable stars of the Hipparcos Unsolved Catalogue.

## 3. Hipparcos main mission and Geneva photometry

A systematic search for finding new $`\gamma `$ Dor stars was undertaken in the Hipparcos periodic variable star catalogue using also Geneva photometry and performing a multivariate discriminant analysis. This study led to a list of 14 new $`\gamma `$ Dor stars (Aerts et al. 1998). This method is stricter since information on amplitude, period, physical parameters and multiperiodic behaviour were taken into account.

## 4. The search in Geneva photometry

Finally the Geneva photometric database was scanned to find F dwarf stars with high standard deviation. Eleven candidates were then measured with the 70-cm Swiss telescope, resulting in about 1000 photometric measurements, which are under study (Eyer & Aerts, in preparation). It turns out that about half suspected stars might be constant stars.

## 5. Spectroscopic measurements

In order to confirm the pulsational character of these stars, new spectra have been taken with the CORALIE spectrograph on the 1.2-m Swiss telescope at ESO-La Silla Observatory. The photometry and spectroscopy are necessary steps since we want to establish a robust list of new $`\gamma `$ Dor stars. Up to now 22 stars have been measured, the strategy consist of taking at least five spectra of each candidate. Among the stars, some are binaries, some are fast rotators and some show clear line profile variations (cf. Fig. 1). Some stars are too faint for the telescope size, thus correlation techniques are used to lower the noise level. The following step is to accumulate photometry and spectra for promising candidates in order to perform mode identification.

## References

Aerts, C., Eyer, L., & Kestens, E. 1998, A&A337, 790

Eyer, L. 1998, PhD Thesis, Geneva University


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# The Formation and Fragmentation of Primordial Molecular Clouds

## 1 Introduction

Saslaw and Zipoy (1967) realized the importance of gas phase H2 molecule formation in primordial gas for the formation of proto–galactic objects. Employing this mechanism in Jeans unstable clouds, Peebles and Dicke (1968) formulated their model for the formation of primordial globular clusters. Further pioneering studies in this subject were carried out by Takeda et al. (1969), Matsuda et al. (1969), and Hirasawa et al. (1969) who followed in detail the gas kinetics in collapsing objects and studied the possible formation of very massive objects (VMO’s). In the 1980’s the possible cosmological consequences of population III star formation were assessed (Rees and Kashlinsky 1983; Carr et al. 1984; Couchman and Rees 1986). In particular Couchman and Rees (1986) discussed first structure formation within the standard cold dark matter model. Their main conclusions were that the first objects might reheat and reionize the universe, raise the Jeans mass and thereby influence subsequent structure formation.

Early studies focused on the chemical evolution and cooling of primordial clouds by solving a chemical reaction network within highly idealized collapse models (cf. Hirasawa 1969; Hutchins 1976; Palla et al. 1983; MacLow and Shull 1986; Puy et al. 1996; Tegmark et al. 1997). Some hydrodynamic aspects of the problem were studied in spherical symmetry by Bodenheimer (1986) and Haiman, Thoul and Loeb (1996). Recently multi–dimensional studies of first structure formation have become computationally feasible (Abel 1995; Anninos & Norman 1996; Zhang et al. 1997; Gnedin & Ostriker 1997; Abel et al. 1998a,1998b; Bromm et al.  1999). These investigations have provided new insights into the inherently multidimensional, nonlinear, nonequilibrium physics which determine the collapse and fragmentation of gravitationally and thermally unstable primordial gas clouds.

In Abel, Anninos, Norman & Zhang 1998a (hereafter AANZ) we presented the first self-consistent 3D cosmological hydrodynamical simulations of first structure formation in a standard cold dark matter–dominated (SCDM) universe. These simulations included a careful treatment of the formation and destruction of H2 —the dominant coolant in low mass halos ($`M_{tot}=10^510^8M_{}`$) which collapse at high redshifts ($`z3050`$). Among the principal findings of that study were: (1) appreciable cooling only occurs in the cores of the high density spherical knots located at the intersection of filaments; (2) good agreement was found with semi-analytic predictions (Abel 1995; Tegmark et al. 1997) of the minimum halo mass able to cool and collapse to higher densities; (3) only a small fraction ($`<10\%`$) of the bound baryons are able to cool promptly, implying that primordial Pop III star clusters may have very low mass. Due to the limited spatial resolution of the those simulations ($`1`$ kpc comoving), we were unable to study the collapse to stellar densities and address the nature of the first objects formed.

In this paper we present new, higher- resolution results using the powerful numerical technique of adaptive mesh refinement (AMR, Bryan & Norman 1997; Norman & Bryan 1999) which has shed some light on how the cooling gas fragments. With an effective dynamic range of $`262,144`$ the numerical simulations presented here are the highest resolution simulations in cosmological hydrodynamics to date. Although we are not yet able to form individual protostars, we are able to resolve the collapsing protostellar cloud cores which must inevitably form them. We find the cores have typical masses $`200M_{}`$, sizes $`0.3`$ pc, and number densities $`n10^5`$ cm-3–similar to dense molecular cloud cores in the Milky Way with one vital difference: the molecular hydrodgen fraction is $`5\times 10^4`$, meaning the cores evolves very differently from Galactic cores.

The plan of this paper is as follows. The simulations are briefly described in Sec. 2. Results are presented in Sec. 3. The properties and fate of the primordial protostellar cloud are discussed in Sec. 4. Conclusions follow in Sec. 5. Results of a broader survey of simulations will be reported in Abel, Bryan & Norman (1999).

## 2 Simulations

The three dimensional adaptive mesh refinement calculations presented here use for the hydrodynamic portion an algorithm very similar to the one described by Berger and Collela (1989). The code utilizes an adaptive hierarchy of grid patches at various levels of resolution. Each rectangular grid patch covers some region of space in its parent grid needing higher resolution, and may itself become the parent grid to an even higher resolution child grid. Our general implementation of AMR places no restriction on the number of grids at a given level of refinement, or the number of levels of refinement. However, we do restrict the refinement factor – the ratio of parent to child mesh spacing – to be an integer (chosen to be 2 in this work). The dark matter is followed with methods similar to the ones presented by Couchman (1991). Furthermore, the algorithm of Anninos et al. (1997) is used to solve the time–dependent chemistry and cooling equations for primordial gas given in Abel et al. (1997). More detailed descriptions of the code are given in Bryan & Norman (1997, 1999), and Norman & Bryan (1999).

The simulations are initialized at redshift 100 with density perturbations of a SCDM model with $`\mathrm{\Omega }_B=0.06`$, $`h=0.5`$, and $`\sigma _8=0.7`$. The abundances of the 9 chemical species (H, H+ , H- , He, He+ , He++ , H2 , H$`{}_{}{}^{+}{}_{2}{}^{}`$ , e-) and the temperature are initialized as discussed in Anninos and Norman (1996). After a collapsing high–$`\sigma `$ peaks has been identified in a low resolution run, the simulation is reinitialized with multiple refinement levels covering the Langrangian volume of the collapsing structure. The mass resolution in the initial conditions within this region are $`0.53(8.96)M_{}`$ in the gas (dark matter). The refinement criteria ensure that: (1) the local Jeans length is resolved by at least 4 grid zones, and (2) that no cell contains more than 4 times the initial mass element ($`0.53M_{}`$). We limit the refinement to 12 levels within a $`64^3`$ top grid which translates to a maximum dynamic range of $`64\times 2^{12}=262,144`$.

## 3 Results

We find that primordial molecular clouds are only formed at the intersection of filaments, in agreement with the results of AANZ. The evolution of these primordial molecular clouds is marked by frequent mergers yielding highly complex velocity and density fields within the “virial” radius. In the following three sections, we first describe the evolution of these objects and then their morphology and structure.

### 3.1 Formation of the First Objects

To illustrate the physical mechanisms at work during the formation of the first cosmological object in our simulation, we show the evolution of various quantities in Figure 1. The top panel of this plot shows the virial mass of the largest object in the simulation volume. We divide the evolution up into four intervals. In the first, before a redshift of about 35, the Jeans mass in the baryonic component is larger than the mass of any non-linear perturbation. Therefore, the only collapsed objects are dark-matter dominanted, and the baryonic field is quite smooth. (We remind the reader that a change in the adopted cosmological model would modify the timing, but not the nature, of the collapse.)

In the second epoch, $`23<z<35`$, as the non-linear mass increases, the first baryonic objects collapse. However, these cannot efficiently cool and the primordial entropy of the gas prevents dense cores from forming. This is shown in the second frame of figure 1 by a large gap between the central baryonic and dark matter densities (note that while the dark matter density is limited by resolution, the baryonic is not, so the true difference is even larger). As mergers continue and the mass of the largest clump increases, its temperature also grows, as shown in the third panel of this figure. The H2 fraction also increases (bottom panel).

By $`z23`$, enough H2 has formed (a few $`\times 10^4`$), and the temperature has grown sufficiently high that cooling begins to be important. During this third phase, the central temperature decreases and the gas density increases. However, the collapse is somewhat protracted because around this point in the evolution, the central density reaches $`n10^4`$ cm-2, and the excited states of H2 are in LTE. This results in a cooling time which is nearly independent of density rather than in the low–density limit where $`t_{cool}\rho ^1`$ (e.g. Lepp & Shull 1983).

Finally, at $`z19`$, a very small dense core forms and reaches the highest resolution that we allowed the code to produce. It is important to note that at this point, the maximum gas density in the simulations exceeds $`10^8\mathrm{cm}^3`$, and at these densities, 3–body formation of molecular hydrogen will become dominant (see Palla et al.  1983). Also, the assumption of optical thin cooling begins to break down and radiative transfer effects become important. Therefore, only simulation results at and above this redshift will be discussed. It is worthwhile to note that the simulations presented here are physics rather than resolution limited.

### 3.2 Morphology

The increase in dynamic range by $`1000`$ in the simulations presented here as compared to AANZ allow us to investigate the details of the fragmentation process in detail. Visualizations of the gas density and temperature on two different scales at $`z=19.1`$ are shown in the color plate 3. In the upper left panel the velocity field is shown superimposed on the density. The $`5\times 10^5M_{}`$ structure forms at the intersection of two filaments with overdensities of $`10`$. Most of the mass accretion occurs along these filaments. The complexity of the velocity field is evident; the accretion shock is highly aspherical and of varying strength. Within the virial radius ($`r=106`$ pc), there are a number of other cooling regions. The right-hand panels zooms in on the collapsing fragment. (note that the smallest resolution element ($`0.02\mathrm{pc}`$) in the simulations is still 1600 times smaller than the slice shown in the right panels). The small fragment in the center of this image has a typical overdensity of $`\stackrel{>}{}10^6`$ and a mass of $`200M_{}`$.

### 3.3 Profiles

Despite the complex structure of the primordial molecular clouds much of their structure can be understood from spherical profiles of the physical quantities, particularly for the dense central core which is nearly spherical. Figure 2 shows mass-weighted, spherical averages of various quantities around the densest cell found in the simulation at redshift 19.1. Panel a) plots the baryon number density, enclosed baryon mass, and local Bonnor-Ebert mass111Bonnor-Ebert mass is the analog of the Jeans Mass but assuming an isothermal ($`\rho r^2`$) instead of a uniform density distribution. $`27M_{}T_K^{1.5}/\sqrt{n}`$ versus radius. Panel b) plots the abundances of H2 and free electrons. Panel c) compares three timescales defined locally: the H2 cooling time $`t_{H_2}`$, the freefall time $`t_{ff}=[3\pi /(32G\rho )]^{1/2}`$, and the sound crossing time $`t_{cross}=r/c_s=7.6\times 10^6r_{pc}/\sqrt{T_K}`$ yrs. In panel d) we identify two distinct regions—labeled I and II—as defined by the temperture profile. Region I ranges from outside the virial radius to $`r_{T_{min}}5\mathrm{pc}`$, the radius at which the infalling material has cooled down to $`T_{min}200\mathrm{K}`$–near the minimum temperature allowed by H2 cooling. Within region I, the temperature profile reflects, in order of decreasing radius, cosmic infall, shock virialization, adiabatic heating in a settling zone, and an H2 cooling flow. In region II, the temperature slowly rises from $`T_{min}`$ to $`400K`$ due to adiabatic heating.

For most of region I the H2 cooling time $`t_{H_2}`$ is comparable to the free–fall time, as is illustrated in panel c) of Figure 2. The H2 number fraction rises from $`7\times 10^6`$ to $`2\times 10^4`$ as the free electron fraction drops from $`2\times 10^4`$ to $`2\times 10^5`$. At $`r_{T_{min}}`$, the sound crossing time becomes substantially shorter than the cooling time. This suggests that region II is contracting quasi–hydrostatically on the cooling time scale, which approaches its constant high–density value at small radii. This constant cooling time of $`10^5\mathrm{years}`$ sets the time scale of the evolution of the fragment until it can turn fully molecular via three body associations. Inside $`r0.3`$ pc, the enclosed baryonic mass of $`200M_{}`$ exceeds the local Bonnor-Ebert mass, implying this material is gravitationally unstable. However, due to the inefficient cooling, its collapse is subsonic (panel e). The radius where $`M>M_{BE}`$ defines our protostellar cloud core.

## 4 Discussion

Many interesting features of the collapsing and fragmenting “primordial molecular cloud” are identified. Most notable is the formation of an initially quasi–hydrostatically contracting core of $`200M_{}`$ which becomes gravitationally unstable. We argue that this is a characteristic mass scale for core formation mediated by H2 cooling. Substituting into the formula for the Bonnor-Ebert mass $`T_{min}`$ and $`n_{LTE}`$ we get $`240M_{}`$.

What will be the fate of the collapsing core? Within the core the number densities increase from $`10^5`$ to $`10^8\mathrm{cm}^3`$. For densities $`\stackrel{>}{}10^8\mathrm{cm}^3`$, however, three–body formation of H2 will become the dominant formation mechanism, transforming all hydrogen into its molecular form (Palla et al. 1983). Our chemical reaction network does not include this reaction and the solution cannot be correct at $`r\stackrel{<}{}0.1\mathrm{pc}`$. The most interesting effect of the three–body reaction is that it will increase the cooling rate by a factor $`10^3`$, leading to a further dramatic density enhancement within the core. This will decrease the dynamical timescales to $`100\mathrm{years}`$, effectively decoupling the evolution of the fragment from the evolution of its host primordial molecular cloud. Therefore, it is a firm conclusion that only the gas within these cores can participate in population III star formation.

Omukai & Nishi (1998) have simulated the evolution of a collapsing, spherically symmetric primordial cloud to stellar density including all relevant physical processes. Coincidentally, their initial conditions are very close to our final state. Based on their results, we can say that if the cloud does not break up, a massive star will be formed. Adding a small amount of angular momentum to the core does not change this conclusion (Bate 1998). A third possibility is that the cloud breaks up into low mass stars via thermal instability in the quasi-hydrostatic phase. Silk (1983) has argued that, due to the enhanced cooling from the 3–body produced H2 , fragmentation of this core might continue until individual fragments are opacity limited (i.e. they become opaque to their cooling radiation). Exploring which of these scenarios is correct will have to await yet higher resolution simulations including the effects of radiative transfer. It will also be interesting to examine the possible effects of molecular HD which, although much less abundant, is a much more efficient coolant at low temperatures.

How many cores are formed in our halo? Because our timestep contracts rapidly once the first core forms, we are not yet able to answer this question definitively. An earlier, less well resolved simulation yielded $`56`$ cores by $`z=16.5`$, suggesting that multiple cores do form. We speculate that the total number of cores to eventually form will be proportional to the total amount of cooled gas. However, the first star in a given halo will most likely always be formed close to its center where the dynamical timescale is shortest. The cooling timescale at $`r_{T_{min}}`$ in Figure 2. of $`\stackrel{>}{}10^6\mathrm{years}`$ should roughly correspond to the typical formation time of fragments. During this time the product of the first collapsed fragment might already be an important source of feedback. Hence, even for the question of the efficiency of fragmentation it seems that feedback physics have to be included.

Let us assume the first $`200M_{}`$ cores fragment to form stars with 100% efficiency. If the ratio of produced UV photons per solar mass is the same as in present day star clusters than about $`6\times 10^{63}`$ UV photons would be liberated during the average life time of massive star ($`5\times 10^7\mathrm{years}`$). This is about hundred times more than the $`4\times 10^{61}`$ hydrogen atoms within the virial radius. However, the average recombination time $`(nk_{rec})^15\times 10^5\mathrm{years}`$ within the virial radius is a factor 100 less than the average lifetime of a massive star. Hence, very small or zero UV escape fractions for these objects are plausible. However, the first supernovae and winds from massive stars will substantially change the subsequent hydrodynamic and chemical evolution as well as the star formation history of these objects. A more detailed understanding of the role of such local feedback will have to await yet more detailed simulations that include the poorly understood physics of stellar feedback mechanisms.

Since the collapsing core evolves on much faster timescales than the rest of the halo it seems plausible that the first star (or star cluster) will have a mass of less or the order of the core mass. It seems also quite clear that the radiative feedback from this star (these stars) will eventually halt further accretion. As a consequence this might suggest that the formation of very massive objects or supermassive black holes is unlikely. This later speculation will be tested by yet higher resolution simulations we are currently working on.

Recently Bromm, Coppi, and Larson (1999) have studied the fragmentation of the first objects in the universe. The results of their simulations using a smooth particle hydrodynamics technique with isolated boundary conditions disagree with the results presented here. Their objects collapse to a disk which then fragments quickly to form many fragments throughout the rotationally supported disk. The efficiently fragmenting disk in those simulations originates from the assumed idealized intial conditions. These authors simulated top-hat spheres that intially rotate as solid bodies on which smaller density fluctuations were imposed. Naturally they find a disk. Also it is clear that for a top-hat if the disk breaks up it will do so everywhere almost simultaneously. Our results with realistic initial conditions do not lead to a disk and form the first fragment close to the center of the halo.

## 5 Conclusions

We have reported first results from an ongoing project that studies the physics of fragmentation and primordial star formation in a cosmological context. The results clearly illustrate the advantages and power of structured adaptive mesh refinement cosmological hydrodynamic methods to cover a wide range of mass, length and timescales. All findings of AANZ are confirmed in this study. Among other things, these are that 1) a significant number fraction of hydrogen molecules is only formed in virialized halos at the intersection of filaments, and 2) only a few percent of the halo gas has cooled to $`TT_{vir}`$.

The improvement of a factor $`1000`$ in resolution over AANZ has given new insights into the details of the fragmentation process and constraints on the possible nature of the first structures: 1) Only $`\stackrel{<}{}1\%`$ of the baryons within a virialized object can participate in population III star formation. 2) The formation of super massive black holes or very massive objects in small halos seem very unlikely. 3) Fragmentation via Bonnor–Ebert instability yields a $`200M_{}`$ core within one virialized object. 4) If the gas were able to fragment further through 3–body H2 association and/or opacity limited fragmentation, only a small fraction of all baryons in the universe will be converted into small mass objects. 5) The escape fraction of UV photons above the Lyman limit should initially be small due to the high column densities of HI ($`N_{HI}10^{23}\mathrm{cm}^2`$) of the parent primordial molecular cloud. 6) The first star in the universe is most likely born close to the center of its parent halo of $`\stackrel{>}{}10^5M_{}`$.

This work is supported in part by NSF grant AST-9803137 under the auspices of the Grand Challenge Cosmology Consortium (GC3). NASA also supported this work through Hubble Fellowship grant HF-0110401-98A from the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc under NASA contract NAS5-26555. Tom Abel acknowledges support from NASA grant NAG5-3923 and useful discussions with Karsten Jedamzik, Martin Rees, Zoltan Haiman, and Simon White.