Young Stellar Objects in the Carina Nebula: Near-infrared Variability and Spectroscopy

We present a catalog of 652 young stellar objects (YSOs) in the Carina star-forming region. The catalog was constructed by combining near-infrared KS-band variability from the VISTA Variables in the Vía Láctea eXtended survey and medium-resolution H-band spectroscopy from APOGEE-2, Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV (SDSS-IV). Variability analysis of 6.35 million sources identified 606 variable stars. The classification of the spectral lines by semisupervised K-means clustering of 704 stars, refined through comparison with known catalogs in literature and visual inspection of the spectra, was performed. Combined with KS variability, the final catalog contains three groups: Emission-line YSOs, Absorption-line YSOs, and Literature/Variable-identified YSOs. Cross validation with the Gaia DR3 proper motion and distance estimates supports Carina membership for 415 sources. The statistical characterization of YSO variability demonstrated that most Carina members (78%) exhibit variability patterns. Of these, 134 stars show emissions in their spectra, which is consistent with some accretion processes. Analysis of fundamental stellar parameters from StarHorse and Gaia DR3 reveals typical distributions of YSOs, dominated by low-mass (1–4M⊙), solar-metallicity stars with temperatures between 4000 and 6000 K. Only a small fraction (4%) of the sources are more massive than 4M⊙, suggesting limited ongoing massive star formation in Carina. This well-characterized catalog also offers a robust training data set for machine learning applications aimed at predicting YSO behavior.