  Pulsations in pre-main sequence stars have been discovered several times
within the last years. But nearly all of these pulsators are of delta
Scuti-type. gamma Doradus-type pulsation in young stars has been predicted by
theory, but lack observational evidence. We present the investigation of
variability caused by rotation and (gammaDoradus-type) pulsation in two
pre-main sequence members of the young open cluster NGC2264 using
high-precision time series photometry from the CoRoT satellite and dedicated
high-resolution spectroscopy. Time series photometry of NGC2264VAS20 and NGC
2264VAS87 was obtained by the CoRoT satellite during the dedicated short run
SRa01 in March 2008. NGC2264VAS87 was re-observed by CoRoT during the short run
SRa05 in December 2011 and January 2012. Frequency analysis was conducted using
Period04 and SigSpec. The spectral analysis was performed using equivalent
widths and spectral synthesis. The frequency analysis yielded 10 and 14
intrinsic frequencies for NGC2264VAS20 and NGC2264VAS 87, respectively, in the
range from 0 to 1.5c/d which are attributed to be caused by a combination of
rotation and pulsation. The effective temperatures were derived to be
6380$\pm$150K for NGC2264VAS20 and 6220$\pm$150K for NGC2264VAS87. Membership
of the two stars to the cluster is confirmed independently using X-ray fluxes,
radial velocity measurements and proper motions available in the literature.
The derived Li abundances of log n(Li)=3.34 and 3.54 for NGC2264VAS20 and
NGC2264VAS87, respectively, are in agreement with the Li abundance for other
stars in NGC2264 of similar Teff reported in the literature. We conclude that
the two objects are members of NGC2264 and therefore are in their pre-main
sequence evolutionary stage. Assuming that part of their variability is caused
by pulsation, these two stars might be the first pre-main sequence gamma
Doradus candidates.
