High-resolution Spectroscopy of [Ne II] Emission from TW Hya

We present high-resolution echelle spectra of [Ne II] 12.81 micron emission from the classical T Tauri star (CTTS) TW Hya obtained with MICHELLE on Gemini North. The line is centered at the stellar radial velocity and has an intrinsic FWHM of 21\pm 4 km/s. The line width is broader than other narrow emission lines typically associated with the disk around TW Hya. If formed in a disk, the line broadening could result from turbulence in a warm disk atmosphere, Keplerian rotation at an average distance of 0.1 AU from the star, or a photoevaporative flow from the optically-thin region of the disk. We place upper limits on the [Ne II] emission flux from the CTTSs DP Tau and BP Tau.Comment: Accepted by ApJ. 18 pages, including 2 figures and 2 table

No evidence for mass segregation in massive young clusters

Aims. We investigate the validity of the mass segregation indicators commonly used in analysing young stellar clusters. Methods. We simulate observations by constructing synthetic seeing-limited images of a 1000 massive clusters (10^4 Msun) with a standard IMF and a King-density distribution function. Results. We find that commonly used indicators are highly sensitive to sample incompleteness in observational data and that radial completeness determinations do not provide satisfactory corrections, rendering the studies of radial properties highly uncertain. On the other hand, we find that, under certain conditions, the global completeness can be estimated accurately, allowing for the correction of the global luminosity and mass functions of the cluster. Conclusions. We argue that there is currently no observational evidence of mass segregation in young compact clusters since there is no robust way to differentiate between true mass segregation and sample incompleteness effects. Caution should then be exercised when interpreting results from observations as evidence of mass segregation.Comment: 10 pages, 12 figures, typos corrected. Download a high-resolution version at http://www.astro.up.pt/~jascenso/mseg_v2.pdf (1 MB

Rotation of Low-mass Stars in Taurus with K2

We present an analysis of K2 light curves (LCs) from Campaigns 4 and 13 for members of the young (~3 Myr) Taurus association, in addition to an older (~30 Myr) population of stars that is largely in the foreground of the Taurus molecular clouds. Out of 156 of the highest-confidence Taurus members, we find that 81% are periodic. Our sample of young foreground stars is biased and incomplete, but nearly all stars (37/38) are periodic. The overall distribution of rotation rates as a function of color (a proxy for mass) is similar to that found in other clusters: the slowest rotators are among the early M spectral types, with faster rotation toward both earlier FGK and later M types. The relationship between period and color/mass exhibited by older clusters such as the Pleiades is already in place by Taurus age. The foreground population has very few stars but is consistent with the USco and Pleiades period distributions. As found in other young clusters, stars with disks rotate on average slower, and few with disks are found rotating faster than ~2 days. The overall amplitude of the LCs decreases with age, and higher-mass stars have generally lower amplitudes than lower-mass stars. Stars with disks have on average larger amplitudes than stars without disks, though the physical mechanisms driving the variability and the resulting LC morphologies are also different between these two classes

The Initial Mass Function of the Orion Nebula Cluster across the H-burning limit

We present a new census of the Orion Nebula Cluster (ONC) over a large field of view (>30'x30'), significantly increasing the known population of stellar and substellar cluster members with precisely determined properties. We develop and exploit a technique to determine stellar effective temperatures from optical colors, nearly doubling the previously available number of objects with effective temperature determinations in this benchmark cluster. Our technique utilizes colors from deep photometry in the I-band and in two medium-band filters at lambda~753 and 770nm, which accurately measure the depth of a molecular feature present in the spectra of cool stars. From these colors we can derive effective temperatures with a precision corresponding to better than one-half spectral subtype, and importantly this precision is independent of the extinction to the individual stars. Also, because this technique utilizes only photometry redward of 750nm, the results are only mildly sensitive to optical veiling produced by accretion. Completing our census with previously available data, we place some 1750 sources in the Hertzsprung-Russel diagram and assign masses and ages down to 0.02 solar masses. At faint luminosities, we detect a large population of background sources which is easily separated in our photometry from the bona fide cluster members. The resulting initial mass function of the cluster has good completeness well into the substellar mass range, and we find that it declines steeply with decreasing mass. This suggests a deficiency of newly formed brown dwarfs in the cluster compared to the Galactic disk population.Comment: 16 pages, 18 figures. Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journa

Towards the field binary population: Influence of orbital decay on close binaries

Surveys of the binary populations in the solar neighbourhood have shown that the periods of G- and M-type stars are log-normally distributed. However, observations of young binary populations suggest a log-uniform distribution. Clearly some process(es) change the period distribution over time. Most stars form in star clusters, in which two important dynamical processes occur: i) gas-induced orbital decay of embedded binary systems and ii) destruction of soft binaries in three-body interactions. The emphasis here is on orbital decay which has been largely neglected so far. Using a combination of Monte-Carlo and dynamical nbody modelling it is demonstrated here that the cluster dynamics destroys the number of wide binaries, but leaves short-period binaries basically undisturbed even for a initially log-uniform distribution. By contrast orbital decay significantly reduces the number and changes the properties of short-period binaries, but leaves wide binaries largely uneffected. Until now it was unclear whether the short period distribution of the field is unaltered since its formation. It is shown here, that orbital decay is a prime candidate for such a task. In combination the dynamics of these two processes, convert an initial log-uniform distribution to a log-normal period distribution. The probability is 94% that the evolved and observed period distribution were sampled from the same parent distribution. This means binaries can be formed with periods that are sampled from the log-uniform distribution. As the cluster evolves, short-period binaries are merged to single stars by the gas-induced orbital decay while the dynamical evolution in the cluster destroys wide binaries. The combination of these two equally important processes reshapes a initial log-uniform period distribution to the log-normal period distribution, that is observed in the field (abridged).Comment: 9 pages, 9 figure