SVS 16: The most X-ray luminous young stellar object

Abstract

We present new infrared and X-ray data on the optically invisible infrared source SVS 16 in the NGC 1333 star forming region. We show that SVS 16 is a binary with a separation of 1''. The infrared spectrum displays photospheric atomic and CO absorption lines, and thus shows that SVS 16 is a highly obscured (A_V ~ 26 mag) low mass young stellar object. Our infrared data allow us to derive basic stellar parameters of SVS 16. We find that the binary system probably consists of two M-type pre-main sequence stars, which seem to be younger than a few 10(5 yrs) . Our new ROSAT PSPC data confirm the previous detection with the ROSAT HRI and show that SVS 16 has an extremely high quiescent X-ray luminosity of about 2 x 10(32) erg/sec in the 0.1 - 2.4 keV band, making it the young stellar object with the brightest quiescent X-ray emission ever detected. We discuss the origin of the strong X-ray emission.