An analysis of the space motions of red dwarf stars
Abstract
. Proper motions and radial velocities are available for 306 dwarfs. The space velocities based on this material lead to 20.0+1.1 km/sec for the solar motion toward the apex A = 282 +4 , D = +42 +4 . Dispersions along the three principal axes of the velocity ellipsoid are 34.5, 26.3, and 20.7 km/sec respectively. The dispersions increase with decreasing luminosity in such a way as to suggest that kinetic energy is constant with respect to uniformly rotating coordinates. The basic solar motion (with respect to the mode of the 3-dimensional velocity distribution) and the velocity distri- bution itself, both tend to indicate that the red dwarfs are most probably typical objects of Population I. Differences between these results and similar studies by Kovalevsky and Delhaye are shown to result from the use of selected material.
- Publication:
-
The Astronomical Journal
- Pub Date:
- June 1956
- DOI:
- 10.1086/107332
- Bibcode:
- 1956AJ.....61..228D