2007A&A...468..413B

The Taurus-Auriga star-forming complex hosts the only population of T Tauri stars in which an anticorrelation of X-ray activity and rotation period has been observed. We aim to explain the origin of the X-ray activity-rotation relation in Taurus-Auriga. We also aim to put the X-ray activity of these stars into the context of the activity of late-type main-sequence stars and T Tauri stars in the Orion Nebula Cluster. We have used XMM-Newton's European Photon Imaging Cameras to perform the most sensitive survey to date of X-ray emission (0.3-10keV) from young stars in Taurus-Auriga. We investigated the dependences of X-ray activity measures - X-ray luminosity, L_X, its ratio with the stellar luminosity, L_X/L_*, and the surface-averaged X-ray flux, F_XS - on rotation period and compared them with predictions based solely on the observed dependence of L_X on a star's L_* and whether it is accreting or not. We tested for differences in the distributions of L_X/L_* of fast and slow rotators, accretors and non-accretors, and compared the dependence of L_X/L_* on the ratio of the rotation period and the convective turnover timescale, the Rossby number, with that of late-type main-sequence stars. We found significant anticorrelations of L_X and F_XS with rotation period, but these could be explained by the typically higher stellar luminosity and effective temperature of fast-rotators in Taurus-Auriga and a near-linear dependence of L_X on L_*. We found no evidence for a dependence of L_X/L_* on rotation period, but for accretors to have lower L_X/L_* than non-accretors at all rotation periods. The Rossby numbers of accretors and non-accretors were found to be the same as those of late-type main-sequence stars showing saturated X-ray emission. Non-accreting T Tauri stars show X-ray activity entirely consistent with the saturated activity of fast-rotating late-type main-sequence stars. Accreting T Tauri stars show lower X-ray activity, but this cannot be attributed to their slower rotation.