A new candidate FU Ori star

In the context of a systematic survey we have found a potential FU Ori star, i.e. a young star undergoing a phase of extremely strong disk accretion. The object 2MASS J16443712-4604017 (short 2M1644-4604) was originally listed in the catalogue of red sources in the Galactic plane by Robitaille et al. (2008). The plot shows the infrared fluxes at different epochs; clearly the object is much brighter at all wavelengths in 2010 (from WISE and VISTA/VVV) compared with earlier measurements (from 2MASS and Spitzer/GLIMPSE), possibly due to a strong increase in the accretion rate. The brightness increase is more than 2 mag at 2.2 micron and more than 1 mag at 3.6 and 4.5 micron. Our own additional measurement from July 2012 (with the 1.3m at Cerro Tololo, J=13.58 mag) still shows almost the same flux level as in 2010 (J=13.32 mag), possibly indicating the FU Ori-typical slow decline. At this point the object remains a candidate. More follow-up observations are needed to definitely confirm that the source is a young star and to rule out other types of variability. The full results will be presented in a forthcoming paper. We publish this object here prior to publication to maximise the chances of quickly acquiring additional data - the object is only observable until mid October.