Stability, chaos and entrapment of stars in very wide pairs

The relative motion of stars and other celestial objects in very wide pairs, separated by distances of the order of 1 pc, is strongly influenced by the tidal gravitational potential of the Galaxy. The Coriolis component of the horizontal tidal force in the rotating reference frame tends to disrupt such marginally bound pairs. However, even extremely wide pairs of bodies can be bound over intervals of time comparable to the Hubble time, under appropriate initial conditions. Here we show that for arbitrary chosen initial coordinates of a pair of stars, there exists a volume of the space of initial velocity components where the orbits remain bound in the planar tidal field for longer than 10 Gyr, even though the initial separation is well outside the Jacobi radius. The boundary of this phase space of stable orbits is fractal, and the motion at the boundary conditions is clearly chaotic. We found that the pairs may remain confined for several Gyr, and then suddenly disintegrate due to a particularly close rendezvous. By reversing such long-term stable orbits, we find that entrapment of unrelated stars into wide pairs is possible, but should be quite rare. Careful analysis of precision astrometry surveys revealed that extremely wide pairs of stars are present in significant numbers in the Galaxy. These results are expected to help discriminating the cases of genuine binarity and chance entrapment, and to make inroads in testing the limits of Newtonian gravitation.Comment: accepted for publication in MNRAS Letters. 3 figures v.2 : minor correction

Rendez-vous of dwarfs

We present observations of multiple system of dwarf galaxies at the Russian 6-m telescope and the GMRT (Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope). The optical observations are a part of the programme Study of Groups of Dwarf Galaxies in the Local Supercluster. The group of galaxies under consideration looks like filament of 5 dwarfs. Two faint galaxies show peculiar structure. Long slit spectrum reveals inner motions about 150 km/s in one of them. It suggests that the galaxy is on stage of ongoing interaction. Probably, we see the group in moment of its formation.Comment: 2 pages, 3 figures; to appear in the proceedings of the conference "A Universe of dwarf galaxies" (Lyon, June 14-18, 2010

Unraveling the Origins of Nearby Young Stars

A systematic search for close conjunctions and clusterings in the past of nearby stars younger than the Pleiades is undertaken, which may reveal the time, location, and mechanism of formation of these often isolated, disconnected from clusters and star-forming regions, objects. The sample under investigation includes 101 T Tauri, post-TT, and main-sequence stars and stellar systems with signs of youth, culled from the literature. Their Galactic orbits are traced back in time and near approaches are evaluated in time, distance, and relative velocity. Numerous clustering events are detected, providing clues to the origin of very young, isolated stars. Each star's orbit is also matched with those of nearby young open clusters, OB and TT associations and star-forming molecular clouds, including the Ophiuchus, Lupus, Corona Australis, and Chamaeleon regions. Ejection of young stars from open clusters is ruled out for nearly all investigated objects, but the nearest OB associations in Scorpius-Centaurus, and especially, the dense clouds in Ophiuchus and Corona Australis have likely played a major role in the generation of the local streams (TWA, Beta Pic, and Tucana-Horologium) that happen to be close to the Sun today. The core of the Tucana-Horologium association probably originated from the vicinity of the Upper Scorpius association 28 Myr ago. A few proposed members of the AB Dor moving group were in conjunction with the coeval Cepheus OB6 association 38 Myr ago

Precision kinematics and related parameters of the α Persei open cluster

A kinematical study of the nearby open cluster α Persei is presented based on the astrometric proper motions and positions in the Tycho-2 catalog and Second USNO CCD Astrographic Catalog (UCAC2). Using the astrometric data and photometry from the Tycho-2 and ground-based catalogs, 139 probable members of the cluster are selected, 18 of them new. By the classical convergent point method, systematic motions of stars inside the cluster and velocity dispersions are estimated. As directly observed, the upper limit on the internal velocity dispersion per coordinate is 1.1 km s^(-1). The actual velocity dispersion is much smaller than that value, since all of it appears to come from the expected errors of the astrometric proper motions. The relative position of the convergent point with respect to the cluster stars yields the "astrometric" radial velocity, which turns out larger by a few km s^(-1) than the mean observed spectroscopic radial velocity. This implies an overall contraction of the cluster. Kinematic parallaxes are computed for each member, and an improved H-R diagram is constructed. An age of 52 Myr is determined by isochrone fitting. The star α Per itself fits an isochrone of this age computed with overshooting from the boundary of the convective zone. The theoretical mass of the star α Per is 6.65 M_⊙. With respect to the common center of mass, half of the higher mass members (earlier than G) are located within a radius of 10.3 pc. The cluster appears to be roughly twice as large, or as sparse, as the Pleiades, retaining nonetheless a similar dynamical coherence. The low rate of binaries is another feature of this cluster, where we find only about 20% of members to be known or suspected spectroscopic, astrometric, or visual binaries or multiple systems. X-ray emitters in the cluster appear to have the same dispersion of internal velocities as the rest of the membership. The cluster is surrounded by an extended, sparse halo of comoving dwarfs, which are found by combining the proper-motion data from UCAC2 with Two Micron All-Sky Survey infrared photometry. Since many of these external stars are outside the tidal radius, the cluster being in an active stage of disintegration or evaporation could be considered. This hypothesis is not supported by the weak compression and the nonmeasurable velocity dispersion found in the kinematic analysis. A search for stars ejected from the α Persei cluster is carried out by tracking a large number of nearby stars 70 Myr back in time and matching their positions with the past location of the cluster. Only one plausible ejection is found prior to 10 Myr ago. The nearby star GJ 82, an active M dwarf with a strong Hα emission, is likely a former member ejected 47 Myr ago at 5 km s^(-1)