TY - JOUR
T1 - New members of the TWHydrae Association and two accreting M-dwarfs in Scorpius-Centaurus
AU - Murphy, Simon J.
AU - Lawson, Warrick A.
AU - Bento, Joao
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 The Authors. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society.
PY - 2015/11/1
Y1 - 2015/11/1
N2 - We report the serendipitous discovery of several young mid-M stars found during a search for new members of the 30-40 Myr-old Octans Association. Only one of the stars may be considered a possible Octans(-Near) member. However, two stars have proper motions, kinematic distances, radial velocities, photometry and Li I λ6708 measurements consistent with membership in the 8-10 Myr-old TW Hydrae Association. Another may be an outlying member of TW Hydrae but has a velocity similar to that predicted by membership in Octans. We also identify two new lithium-rich members of the neighbouring Scorpius-Centaurus OB Association (Sco-Cen). Both exhibit large 12 and 22 μm excesses and strong, variable Ha emission which we attribute to accretion from circumstellar discs. Such stars are thought to be incredibly rare at the ~16 Myr median age of Sco-Cen and they join only one other confirmed M-type and three higher mass accretors outside of Upper Scorpius. The serendipitous discovery of two accreting stars hosting large quantities of circumstellar material may be indicative of a sizeable age spread in Sco-Cen, or further evidence that disc dispersal and planet formation time-scales are longer around lower mass stars. To aid future studies of Sco-Cen, we also provide a newly compiled catalogue of 305 early-type Hipparcos members with spectroscopic radial velocities sourced from the literature.
AB - We report the serendipitous discovery of several young mid-M stars found during a search for new members of the 30-40 Myr-old Octans Association. Only one of the stars may be considered a possible Octans(-Near) member. However, two stars have proper motions, kinematic distances, radial velocities, photometry and Li I λ6708 measurements consistent with membership in the 8-10 Myr-old TW Hydrae Association. Another may be an outlying member of TW Hydrae but has a velocity similar to that predicted by membership in Octans. We also identify two new lithium-rich members of the neighbouring Scorpius-Centaurus OB Association (Sco-Cen). Both exhibit large 12 and 22 μm excesses and strong, variable Ha emission which we attribute to accretion from circumstellar discs. Such stars are thought to be incredibly rare at the ~16 Myr median age of Sco-Cen and they join only one other confirmed M-type and three higher mass accretors outside of Upper Scorpius. The serendipitous discovery of two accreting stars hosting large quantities of circumstellar material may be indicative of a sizeable age spread in Sco-Cen, or further evidence that disc dispersal and planet formation time-scales are longer around lower mass stars. To aid future studies of Sco-Cen, we also provide a newly compiled catalogue of 305 early-type Hipparcos members with spectroscopic radial velocities sourced from the literature.
KW - Open clusters and associations: individual: TW Hydrae
KW - Scorpius-Centaurus (Sco OB2)
KW - Stars: formation
KW - Stars: low-mass
KW - Stars: pre-main sequence
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84943756750&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1093/mnras/stv1745
DO - 10.1093/mnras/stv1745
M3 - Article
SN - 0035-8711
VL - 453
SP - 2220
EP - 2231
JO - Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
JF - Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
IS - 3
ER -