An unusual abundance of T Tauri stars? NIR study of the southern high-mass star-forming region RCW 34
Abstract
RCW 34 is a special star-forming region with a few stars showing an infrared excess, but seems as if it has an uncommon abundance in T Tauri stars. This possibility was confirmed by (i) clustering of classical T Tauri (CTT) stars in the two-color diagram, (ii) clustering of pre-main-sequence stars in the color-magnitude diagram, as well as (iii) the significant clustering at dimensions larger than the image-frame size, indicated by the second ‘bump’ in the two-point correlation analysis. A possible explanation for the above features could be the existence of an underlying wide CTT cluster with a smaller cluster centered around the massive star. The Ks-band luminosity function (α = 0.31) of RCW 34 shows that it is indeed a region of low stellar masses with an age of about of 1 Myr. Spectroscopic confirmation of such an underlying T Tauri cluster is necessary before any definite conclusions can be reached.
- Publication:
-
Star Clusters: Basic Galactic Building Blocks Throughout Time and Space
- Pub Date:
- January 2010
- DOI:
- 10.1017/S1743921309991414
- Bibcode:
- 2010IAUS..266..384D
- Keywords:
-
- methods: data analysis;
- techniques: image processing;
- techniques: photometric;
- stars: formation;
- stars: fundamental parameters;
- stars: luminosity function;
- mass function;
- stars: pre–main-sequence;
- infrared: stars