Tracing the inner circumstellar disk via photometric variability studies

Stellar accretion during the pre-main sequence phase is known to occur in non-periodic, often intense, bursts. These accretion bursts are accompanied by strong photometric brightness variations of the star, typically on time-scales of months or longer. At the same time smaller amplitude changes in the pre-main sequence star's light curve, on time scales of weeks and days, are expected due to inner disk warps and accretion columns that move into the line of sight as the star-disk system rotates. In this contribution we present our observational programme to study the variability of several hundreds of PMS stars in the low metallicity environment of the Magellanic Clouds. The signatures of the photometric variability shall allow us to obtain evidence for the accretion phenomena (bursts or steady accretion) and inner disk morphologies present for PMS stars in the Magellanic Clouds. Comparisons with Galactic samples will show if/how metallicity plays a role for the physics of accretion from the inner circumstellar disk and its evolution.