The Orion Complex is a notable star-forming region fragmented into several different populations with substantial differences in their phase space. I propose a model that attempts to explain the how ...the Complex has evolved into this current configuration. In the model presented here, the large-scale expansion can be attributable to a supernova that exploded 6 Myr ago. The remnants of this explosion can be seen as Barnard's loop, as the center of the expansion is consistent with the geometrical center of the H ii bubble. This is similar to the H ii bubble and the ballistic expansion that is associated with λ Ori, a region that was also the site of an ancient supernova. Assuming that the Orion Complex originally formed as one long filament spanning from the bottom of Orion A to 2 Ori (or potentially as far as λ Ori), Barnard's loop supernova could have split the cloud, which led to the formation of Orion C & D. Furthermore, the shockwave that propagated into the filament could have swept along the gas through several parsecs, which led to the formation of the singularly most massive cluster in the solar neighborhood, the Orion Nebula Cluster. I also discuss other related nearby events, such as the formation of the Monogem ring and various runaways that have been ejected from the Orion Complex.
Gaia DR2 provides unprecedented precision in measurements of the distance and kinematics of stars in the solar neighborhood. Through applying unsupervised machine learning on DR2's 5D data set (3D ...position + 2D velocity), we identify a number of clusters, associations, and comoving groups within 1 kpc and (many of which have not been previously known). We estimate their ages with the precision of ∼0.15 dex. Many of these groups appear to be filamentary or string-like, oriented in parallel to the Galactic plane, and some span hundreds of parsec in length. Most of these string lack a central cluster, indicating that their filamentary structure is primordial, rather than the result of tidal stripping or dynamical processing. The youngest strings (<100 Myr) are orthogonal to the Local Arm. The older ones appear to be remnants of several other arm-like structures that cannot be presently traced by dust and gas. The velocity dispersion measured from the ensemble of groups and strings increase with age, suggesting a timescale for dynamical heating of ∼300 Myr. This timescale is also consistent with the age at which the population of strings begins to decline, while the population in more compact groups continues to increase, suggesting that dynamical processes are disrupting the weakly bound string populations, leaving only individual clusters to be identified at the oldest ages. These data shed a new light on the local galactic structure and a large-scale cloud collapse.
Runaway Young Stars near the Orion Nebula McBride, Aidan; Kounkel, Marina
Astrophysical journal/The Astrophysical journal,
10/2019, Volume:
884, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
The star-forming region of the Orion Nebula (ONC) is ideal to study the stellar dynamics of young stars in a clustered environment. Using Gaia DR2 we search for pre-main sequence stars with unusually ...high proper motions that may be representative of a dynamical ejection from unstable young triple systems or other close three-body encounters. We identify 26 candidate stars that are likely to have had such an encounter in the last 1 Myr. Nine of these stars could be traced back to the densest central-most region of the ONC, the Trapezium, while five others have likely interactions with other OB-type stars in the cluster. Seven stars originate from other nearby populations within the Orion Complex that coincidentally scattered toward the ONC. A definitive point of origin cannot be identified for the remaining sources. These observations shed light on the frequency of the ejection events in young clusters.
We present the results of the hierarchical clustering analysis of the Gaia DR2 data to search for clusters, comoving groups, and other stellar structures. The current paper builds on the sample from ...the previous work, extending it in distance from 1 to 3 kpc and increasing the number of identified structures up to 8292. To aid in the analysis of the population properties, we developed a neural network called Auriga to robustly estimate the age, extinction, and distance of a stellar group based on the input photometry and parallaxes of the individual members. We apply Auriga to derive the properties of not only the structures found in this paper, but also previously identified open clusters. Through this work, we examine the temporal structure of the spiral arms. Specifically, we find that the Sagittarius Arm has moved by >500 pc in the last 100 Myr and the Perseus Arm has been experiencing a relative lull in star formation activity over the last 25 Myr. We confirm the findings of the previous paper on the transient nature of the spiral arms, with the timescale of transition of a few 100 Myr. Finally, we find a peculiar ∼1 Gyr old stream of stars that appears to be heliocentric. Its origin is unclear.
ABSTRACT We present the first results of the Gould's Belt Distances Survey (GOBELINS), a project aimed at measuring the proper motion and trigonometric parallax of a large sample of young stars in ...nearby regions using multi-epoch Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) radio observations. Enough VLBA detections have now been obtained for 16 stellar systems in Ophiuchus to derive their parallax and proper motion. This leads to distance determinations for individual stars with an accuracy of 0.3 to a few percent. In addition, the orbits of six multiple systems were modelled by combining absolute positions with VLBA (and, in some cases, near-infrared) angular separations. Twelve stellar systems are located in the dark cloud Lynds 1688; the individual distances for this sample are highly consistent with one another and yield a mean parallax for Lynds 1688 of mas, corresponding to a distance pc. This represents an accuracy greater than 1%. Three systems for which astrometric elements could be measured are located in the eastern streamer (Lynds 1689) and yield an estimate of mas, corresponding to a distance pc. This suggests that the eastern streamer is located about 10 pc farther than the core, but this conclusion needs to be confirmed by observations of additional sources in the eastern streamer (currently being collected). From the measured proper motions, we estimate the one-dimensional velocity dispersion in Lynds 1688 to be 2.8 1.8 and 3.0 2.0 km s−1, in R.A. and decl., respectively; these are larger than, but still consistent within of, those found in other studies.
Abstract We have assembled a sample of ∼8200 stars with spectral types F5V–M5V, all having directly measured X-ray luminosities from eROSITA and rotation periods from TESS and having empirically ...estimated ages via their membership in stellar clusters and groups identified in Gaia astrometry (ages 3–500 Myr). This is the largest such study sample yet assembled for the purpose of empirically constraining the evolution of rotationally driven stellar X-ray activity. We observe rotation–age–activity correlations that are qualitatively as expected: stars of a given spectral type spin down with age, and they become less X-ray active as they do so. We provide simple functional representations of these empirical relationships that predict X-ray luminosity from basic observables to within 0.3 dex. Interestingly, we find that the rotation–activity relationship is far simpler and more monotonic in form when expressed in terms of stellar angular momentum instead of rotation period. We discuss how this finding may relate to the long-established idea that rotation–activity relationships are mediated by stellar structure (e.g., convective turnover time, surface area). Finally, we provide an empirical relation that predicts stellar angular momentum from basic observables, without requiring a direct measurement of stellar rotation, to within 0.5 dex.
We derive the distance and structure of the Perseus molecular cloud by combining trigonometric parallaxes from Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) observations, taken as part of the GOBELINS survey and ...Gaia Data Release 2. Based on our VLBA astrometry, we obtain a distance of 321 10 pc for IC 348. This is fully consistent with the mean distance of 320 26 measured by Gaia. The VLBA observations toward NGC 1333 are insufficient to claim a successful distance measurement to this cluster. Gaia parallaxes, on the other hand, yield a mean distance of 293 22 pc. Hence, the distance along the line of sight between the eastern and western edges of the cloud is ∼30 pc, which is significantly smaller than previously inferred. We use Gaia proper motions and published radial velocities to derive the spatial velocities of a selected sample of stars. The average velocity vectors with respect to the LSR are = (−6.1 1.6, 6.8 1.1, −0.9 1.2) and (−6.4 1.0, 2.1 1.4, −2.4 1.0) km s−1 for IC 348 and NGC 1333, respectively. Finally, our analysis of the kinematics of the stars has shown that there is no clear evidence of expansion, contraction, or rotational motions within the clusters.
We present Gaia-DR2 astrometry of a sample of YSO candidates in Ophiuchus, Serpens Main, and Serpens South/W40 in the Aquila Rift, which had been mainly identified by their infrared excess with ...Spitzer. We compare the Gaia-DR2 parallaxes against published and new parallaxes obtained from our Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) program Gould's Belt Distances Survey. We obtain consistent results between Gaia and the VLBA for the mean parallaxes in each of the regions analyzed here. We see small offsets, when comparing mean values, of a few tens of microarcseconds in the parallaxes, which are either introduced by the Gaia zero-point error or due to a selection effect by Gaia toward the brightest, less obscured stars. Gaia-DR2 data alone conclusively places Serpens Main and Serpens South at the same distance, as we first inferred from VLBA data alone in a previous publication. Thus, Serpens Main, Serpens South, and W40 are all part of the same complex of molecular clouds, located at a mean distance of 436 9 pc. In Ophiuchus, both Gaia and VLBA suggest a small parallax gradient across the cloud, and the distance changes from 144.2 1.3 to 138.4 2.6 pc when going from L1689 to L1688.
Close Companions around Young Stars Kounkel, Marina; Covey, Kevin; Moe, Maxwell ...
The Astronomical journal,
05/2019, Volume:
157, Issue:
5
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Multiplicity is a fundamental property that is set early during stellar lifetimes, and it is a stringent probe of the physics of star formation. The distribution of close companions around young ...stars is still poorly constrained by observations. We present an analysis of stellar multiplicity derived from Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment-2 spectra obtained in targeted observations of nearby star-forming regions. This is the largest homogeneously observed sample of high-resolution spectra of young stars. We developed an autonomous method to identify double-lined spectroscopic binaries (SB2s). Out of 5007 sources spanning the mass range of ∼0.05-1.5 M , we find 399 binaries, including both radial velocity (RV) variables and SB2s. The mass ratio distribution of SB2s is consistent with being uniform for q < 0.95 with an excess of twins for q > 0.95. The period distribution is consistent with what has been observed in close binaries (<10 au) in the evolved populations. Three systems are found to have q ∼ 0.1, with a companion located within the brown dwarf desert. There are no strong trends in the multiplicity fraction as a function of cluster age from 1 to 100 Myr. There is a weak dependence on stellar density, with companions being most numerous at * ∼ 30 stars/pc−2 and decreasing in more diffuse regions. Finally, disk-bearing sources are deficient in SB2s (but not RV variables) by a factor of ∼2; this deficit is recovered by the systems without disks. This may indicate a quick dispersal of disk material in short-period equal-mass systems that is less effective in binaries with lower q.
ABSTRACT We report on new distances and proper motions to seven stars across the Serpens/Aquila complex. The observations were obtained as part of the Gould's Belt Distances Survey (GOBELINS) project ...between 2013 September and 2016 April with the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA). One of our targets is the proto-Herbig AeBe object EC 95, which is a binary system embedded in the Serpens Core. For this system, we combined the GOBELINS observations with previous VLBA data to cover a total period of 8 years, and derive the orbital elements and an updated source distance. The individual distances to sources in the complex are fully consistent with each other, and the mean value corresponds to a distance of 436.0 9.2 pc for the Serpens/W40 complex. Given this new evidence, we argue that Serpens Main, W40, and Serpens South are physically associated and form a single cloud structure.
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