A radio survey of weak T Tauri stars in Taurus-Auriga

A multi-epoch 5 GHz survey of candidate or confirmed weak T Tauri stars in the Taurus-Auriga molecular cloud complex was conducted with the Very Large Array. The stars were chosen from those having detectable x-ray or chromospheric emission, and weak-emission-line pre-main-sequence stars found by other means. Snapshots of 99 VLA fields containing 119 candidate stars were obtained with a sensitivity of 0.7 mJy; most fields were observed on two or three dates. Nine radio sources coincident with cataloged stars were found. One may be an RS CVn binary system; the other eight are pre-main-sequence stars. Three of the detected stars - HD 283447, V410 Tau, and FK x-ray 1 - were previously known radio sources. Five new detections are Herbig's Anon 1, Hubble 4, HDE 283572, Elias 12, and HK Tau/c. At least five of the sources are variable, and no linear or circular polarization was found. Several lines of evidence suggest that the radio-detected weak T Tauri stars are quite young, perhaps younger on average than nondetected stars. Also, these data support earlier evidence that about 12% of weak-emission-line pre-main-sequence stars emit at GHz frequencies at levels ≥2×10¹⁶ ergs/s/Hz. This emission is probably due to gyrosynchrotron radiation occurring in large flares near the stellar surface.