Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Sep 1999
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1999aas...194.6915m&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, 194th AAS Meeting, #69.15; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 31, p.936
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
We have used the WIYN Multi-Object Spectrograph to test 537 stars within 0.5 deg of the lambda Orionis OB association for the presence of lithium 6708{ Angstroms} absorption, a diagnostic of youth. These stars were selected as a complete sample of pre-main-sequence candidates in the region, based on our CCD photometric survey. We find 72 stars which show large lithium equivalent widths and radial velocities consistent with association membership, only two of which were previously discovered by Hα surveys. Comparison with evolutionary models indicate that these stars have an age distribution either younger than (D'Antona & Mazzitelli 1998) or coeval with (Baraffe et al. 1998) the 2-6 Myr OB stars, and that they are roughly 0.3-1.0 M_sun. Kinematic evidence and the shape of the age distributions suggest that an event about a million years ago has strongly affected the star formation history of the region. Estimating our sample completeness at about 80%, we find that the local initial mass function within 7 parsecs of the 11 OB stars is indistinguishable from the IMF of the field. Finally, despite their youth, only four of these stars have T Tauri-like Hα emission, suggesting an absence of accretion disks. This absence may be indicative of photoevaporation of the disks due to close proximity with the OB stars. This work is supported by NSF grant AST 94-1715 and the Wisconsin Space Grant Consortium.
Dolan Christopher J.
Mathieu Robert D.
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