Orion revisited. II. The foreground population to Orion A

Following the recent discovery of a large population of young stars in front of the Orion Nebula, we carried out an observational campaign with the DECam wide-field camera covering ~10~deg^2 centered on NGC 1980 to confirm, probe the extent of, and characterize this foreground population of pre-main-sequence stars. We confirm the presence of a large foreground population towards the Orion A cloud. This population contains several distinct subgroups, including NGC1980 and NGC1981, and stretches across several degrees in front of the Orion A cloud. By comparing the location of their sequence in various color-magnitude diagrams with other clusters, we found a distance and an age of 380pc and 5~10Myr, in good agreement with previous estimates. Our final sample includes 2123 candidate members and is complete from below the hydrogen-burning limit to about 0.3Msun, where the data start to be limited by saturation. Extrapolating the mass function to the high masses, we estimate a total number of ~2600 members in the surveyed region. We confirm the presence of a rich, contiguous, and essentially coeval population of about 2600 foreground stars in front of the Orion A cloud, loosely clustered around NGC1980, NGC1981, and a new group in the foreground of the OMC-2/3. For the area of the cloud surveyed, this result implies that there are more young stars in the foreground population than young stars inside the cloud. Assuming a normal initial mass function, we estimate that between one to a few supernovae must have exploded in the foreground population in the past few million years, close to the surface of Orion A, which might be responsible, together with stellar winds, for the structure and star formation activity in these clouds. This long-overlooked foreground stellar population is of great significance, calling for a revision of the star formation history in this region of the Galaxy.Comment: Accepted for publication in A&

A hierarchical Bayesian model to infer PL(Z) relations using Gaia parallaxes

Aims. We aim at creating a Bayesian model to infer the coefficients of PL or PLZ relations that propagates uncertainties in the observables in a rigorous and well founded way. Methods. We propose a directed acyclic graph to encode the conditional probabilities of the inference model that will allow us to infer probability distributions for the PL and PL(Z) relations. We evaluate the model with several semi-synthetic data sets and apply it to a sample of 200 fundamental mode and first overtone mode RR Lyrae stars for which Gaia DR1 parallaxes and literature Ks-band mean magnitudes are available. We define and test several hyperprior probabilities to verify their adequacy and check the sensitivity of the solution with respect to the prior choice. Results. The main conclusion of this work is the absolute necessity of incorporating the existing correlations between the observed variables (periods, metallicities and parallaxes) in the form of model priors in order to avoid systematically biased results, especially in the case of non-negligible uncertainties in the parallaxes. The tests with the semi-synthetic data based on the data set used in Gaia Collaboration et al. (2017) reveal the significant impact that the existing correlations between parallax, metallicity and periods have on the inferred parameters. The relation coefficients obtained here have been superseded by those presented in Muraveva et al. (2018a), that incorporates the findings of this work and the more recent Gaia DR2 measurements.Comment: 14 pages, 12 figures. Submitted to A&

Automated supervised classification of variable stars I. Methodology

The fast classification of new variable stars is an important step in making them available for further research. Selection of science targets from large databases is much more efficient if they have been classified first. Defining the classes in terms of physical parameters is also important to get an unbiased statistical view on the variability mechanisms and the borders of instability strips. Our goal is twofold: provide an overview of the stellar variability classes that are presently known, in terms of some relevant stellar parameters; use the class descriptions obtained as the basis for an automated `supervised classification' of large databases. Such automated classification will compare and assign new objects to a set of pre-defined variability training classes. For every variability class, a literature search was performed to find as many well-known member stars as possible, or a considerable subset if too many were present. Next, we searched on-line and private databases for their light curves in the visible band and performed period analysis and harmonic fitting. The derived light curve parameters are used to describe the classes and define the training classifiers. We compared the performance of different classifiers in terms of percentage of correct identification, of confusion among classes and of computation time. We describe how well the classes can be separated using the proposed set of parameters and how future improvements can be made, based on new large databases such as the light curves to be assembled by the CoRoT and Kepler space missions.Comment: This paper has been accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics (reference AA/2007/7638) Number of pages: 27 Number of figures: 1

The Gaia Ultra-Cool Dwarf Sample -- II : Structure at the end of the main sequence

© 2019 The Author(s) Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society.We identify and investigate known late M, L, and T dwarfs in the Gaia second data release. This sample is being used as a training set in the Gaia data processing chain of the ultracool dwarfs work package. We find 695 objects in the optical spectral range M8–T6 with accurate Gaia coordinates, proper motions, and parallaxes which we combine with published spectral types and photometry from large area optical and infrared sky surveys. We find that 100 objects are in 47 multiple systems, of which 27 systems are published and 20 are new. These will be useful benchmark systems and we discuss the requirements to produce a complete catalogue of multiple systems with an ultracool dwarf component. We examine the magnitudes in the Gaia passbands and find that the G BP magnitudes are unreliable and should not be used for these objects. We examine progressively redder colour–magnitude diagrams and see a notable increase in the main-sequence scatter and a bivariate main sequence for old and young objects. We provide an absolute magnitude – spectral subtype calibration for G and G RP passbands along with linear fits over the range M8–L8 for other passbands.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

The Seven Sisters DANCe III: Projected spatial distribution

Methods. We compute Bayesian evidences and Bayes Factors for a set of variations of the classical radial models by King (1962), Elson et al. (1987) and Lauer et al. (1995). The variations incorporate different degrees of model freedom and complexity, amongst which we include biaxial (elliptical) symmetry, and luminosity segregation. As a by-product of the model comparison, we obtain posterior distributions and maximum a posteriori estimates for each set of model parameters. Results. We find that the model comparison results depend on the spatial extent of the region used for the analysis. For a circle of 11.5 parsecs around the cluster centre (the most homogeneous and complete region), we find no compelling reason to abandon Kings model, although the Generalised King model, introduced in this work, has slightly better fitting properties. Furthermore, we find strong evidence against radially symmetric models when compared to the elliptic extensions. Finally, we find that including mass segregation in the form of luminosity segregation in the J band, is strongly supported in all our models. Conclusions. We have put the question of the projected spatial distribution of the Pleiades cluster on a solid probabilistic framework, and inferred its properties using the most exhaustive and least contaminated list of Pleiades candidate members available to date. Our results suggest however that this sample may still lack about 20% of the expected number of cluster members. Therefore, this study should be revised when the completeness and homogeneity of the data can be extended beyond the 11.5 parsecs limit. Such study will allow a more precise determination of the Pleiades spatial distribution, its tidal radius, ellipticity, number of objects and total mass.Comment: 39 pages, 31 figure

Dynamical two-mode squeezing of thermal fluctuations in a cavity opto-mechanical system

We report the experimental observation of two-mode squeezing in the oscillation quadratures of a thermal micro-oscillator. This effect is obtained by parametric modulation of the optical spring in a cavity opto-mechanical system. In addition to stationary variance measurements, we describe the dynamic behavior in the regime of pulsed parametric excitation, showing enhanced squeezing effect surpassing the stationary 3dB limit. While the present experiment is in the classical regime, our technique can be exploited to produce entangled, macroscopic quantum opto-mechanical modes

CORRELATION BETWEEN FUNCTIONAL CLASSIFICATION AND KINEMATICAL VARIABLES IN ELITE WHEELCHAIR RUGBY PLAYERS

Wheelchair rugby is a Paralympic team sport for athletes with disabilities affecting the four limbs. Players are classified according to their functional level from 0.5 (lowest function) to 3.5 (highest function). A player’s classification is based on muscle tests designed to evaluate the strength and range of motion of the upper limbs and trunk and also includes observation of the athlete on court (IWRF, 2008). Although the sport class is based on movement potential associated with neuromuscular function and performance of tasks related to the sport, it is not well known how functional classification in rugby correlates with variables strongly related to performance such as distance covered. In a previous investigation (Sarro et al., 2010), kinematical variables were analyzed in an international rugby competition and suggested a relation between functional classification and distance covered during the game. To further examine this relationship, this project aimed to investigate the correlation between functional classification and player physical performance as measured by distance covered during a game. In addition, the correlation was examined for each game quarter and as a function of velocity range

CORRELATION BETWEEN FUNCTIONAL CLASSIFICATION AND KINEMATICAL VARIABLES IN ELITE WHEELCHAIR RUGBY PLAYERS

Wheelchair rugby is a Paralympic team sport for athletes with disabilities affecting the four limbs. Players are classified according to their functional level from 0.5 (lowest function) to 3.5 (highest function). A player’s classification is based on muscle tests designed to evaluate the strength and range of motion of the upper limbs and trunk and also includes observation of the athlete on court (IWRF, 2008). Although the sport class is based on movement potential associated with neuromuscular function and performance of tasks related to the sport, it is not well known how functional classification in rugby correlates with variables strongly related to performance such as distance covered. In a previous investigation (Sarro et al., 2010), kinematical variables were analyzed in an international rugby competition and suggested a relation between functional classification and distance covered during the game. To further examine this relationship, this project aimed to investigate the correlation between functional classification and player physical performance as measured by distance covered during a game. In addition, the correlation was examined for each game quarter and as a function of velocity range