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The extraordinary far-infrared variation of a protostar: Herschel/PACS observations of LRLL54361

We report Herschel/PACS photometric observations at 70 μm and 160 μm of LRLL54361 - a suspected binary protostar that exhibits periodic (P=25.34 days) flux variations at shorter wavelengths (3.6 μm and 4.5 μm) thought to be due to pulsed accretion caused by binary motion. The PACS observations show unprecedented flux variation at these far-infrared wavelengths that are well cor- related with the variations at shorter wavelengths. At 70 μm the object increases its flux by a factor of six while at 160μm the change is about a factor of two, consistent with the wavelength dependence seen in the far-infrared spectra. The source is marginally resolved at 70 μm with varying FWHM. Deconvolved images of the sources show elongations exactly matching the outflow cavities traced by the scattered light observations. The spatial variations are anti-correlated with the flux variation indicating that a light echo is responsible for the changes in FWHM. The observed far-infrared flux variability indicates that the disk and en- velope of this source is periodically heated by the accretion pulses of the central source, and suggests that such long wavelength variability in general may provide a reasonable proxy for accretion variations in protostars.