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Register a new userExtended stellar systems in the solar neighborhood -- V. Discovery of coronae of nearby star clusters
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In this paper, we present a novel view on the morphology and the dynamical state of 10 prominent, nearby ($leq$ 500 pc), and young ($sim$30-300 Myr) open star clusters with Gaia DR2: $alpha,$Per, Blanco 1, IC 2602, IC 2391, Messier 39, NGC 2451A, NGC 2516, NGC 2547, Platais 9, and the Pleiades. We introduce a pioneering member identification method that is informed by cluster bulk velocities and deconvolves the spatial distribution with a mixture of Gaussians. Our approach enables inferring the clusters true spatial distribution by effectively filtering field star contaminants while at the same time mitigating the impact of positional errors along the line of sight. This first application of the method reveals the existence of vast stellar coronae, extending for $gtrsim,$100 pc and surrounding the, by comparison tiny and compact, cluster cores. The coronae and cores form intertwined, co-eval, and co-moving extended cluster populations, each encompassing tens of thousands of cubic parsec and stretching across tens of degrees on the sky. Our analysis shows that the coronae are gravitationally unbound but largely comprise the bulk of the populations stellar mass. Most systems are in a highly dynamic state, showing evidence of expansion and sometimes simultaneous contraction along different spatial axes. The velocity field of the extended populations for the cluster cores appears asymmetric but is aligned along a spatial axis unique to each cluster. The overall spatial distribution and the kinematic signature of the populations are largely consistent with the differential rotation pattern of the Milky Way. This finding underlines the important role of global Galactic dynamics to the fate of stellar systems. Our results highlight the complexity of the Milky Ways open cluster population and call for a new perspective on the characterization and dynamical state of open clusters.
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We report the discovery of a young (only 30-40,Myr) snake-like structure (dubbed a stellar snake) in the solar neighborhood from {it Gaia} DR2. The average distance of this structure is about 310,pc from us. Both the length and width are over 200,pc, but the thickness is only about 80,pc. The snake has one tail and two dissolving cores, which can be clearly distinguished in the 6D phase space. The whole structure includes thousands of members with a total mass of larger than 2000,$M_{odot}$ in an uniform population. The population is so young that it can not be well explained with the classical theory of tidal tails. We therefore suspect that the snake is hierarchically primordial, rather than the result of dynamically tidal stripping, even if the snake is probably expanding. The coherent 5D phase information and the ages suggest that the snake was probably born in the same environment as the filamentary structure of Beccari et al.(2020). If so, the snake could extend the sky region of the Vela OB2 association by a factor of $sim 2$, and supplement the census of its coeval structures. This finding is useful to understand the history of the formation and evolution of the Vela OB2 complex. The age of the snake well matches with that of the Gould Belt. In the sky region of our interest, we detect one new open cluster, which is named as Tian 1 in this work.
The SFiNCs (Star Formation in Nearby Clouds) project is an X-ray/infrared study of the young stellar populations in 22 star forming regions with distances <=1 kpc designed to extend our earlier MYStIX survey of more distant clusters. Our central goal is to give empirical constraints on cluster formation mechanisms. Using parametric mixture models applied homogeneously to the catalog of SFiNCs young stars, we identify 52 SFiNCs clusters and 19 unclustered stellar structures. The procedure gives cluster properties including location, population, morphology, association to molecular clouds, absorption, age (AgeJX), and infrared spectral energy distribution (SED) slope. Absorption, SED slope, and AgeJX are age indicators. SFiNCs clusters are examined individually, and collectively with MYStIX clusters, to give the following results. (1) SFiNCs is dominated by smaller, younger, and more heavily obscured clusters than MYStIX. (2) SFiNCs cloud-associated clusters have the high ellipticities aligned with their host molecular filaments indicating morphology inherited from their parental clouds. (3) The effect of cluster expansion is evident from the radius-age, radius-absorption, and radius-SED correlations. Core radii increase dramatically from ~0.08 to ~0.9 pc over the age range 1--3.5 Myr. Inferred gas removal timescales are longer than 1 Myr. (4) Rich, spatially distributed stellar populations are present in SFiNCs clouds representing early generations of star formation. An Appendix compares the performance of the mixture models and nonparametric Minimum Spanning Tree to identify clusters. This work is a foundation for future SFiNCs/MYStIX studies including disk longevity, age gradients, and dynamical modeling.
We present medium resolution spectroscopy and multi-epoch VRI photometry for 21 new nearby (< 50 pc) white dwarf systems brighter than V ~ 17. Of the new systems, ten are DA (including a wide double degenerate system with two DA components), eight are DC, two are DZ, and one is DB. In addition, we include multi-epoch VRI photometry for eleven known white dwarf systems that do not have trigonometric parallax determinations. Using model atmospheres relevant for various types of white dwarfs (depending on spectral signatures), we perform spectral energy distribution modeling by combining the optical photometry with the near-infrared JHK from the Two Micron All-Sky Survey to derive physical parameters (i.e., effective temperature and distance estimates). We find that twelve new and six known white dwarf systems are estimated to be within the NStars and Catalog of Nearby Stars horizons of 25 pc. Coupled with identical analyses of the 56 white dwarf systems presented in Paper XIX of this series, a total of 20 new white dwarf systems and 18 known white dwarf systems are estimated to be within 25 pc. These 38 systems of the 88 total studied represent a potential 34% increase in the 25 pc white dwarf population (currently known to consist of 110 systems with trigonometric parallaxes of varying qualities). We continue an ongoing effort via CTIOPI to measure trigonometric parallaxes for the systems estimated to be within 25 pc to confirm proximity and further fill the incompleteness gap in the local white dwarf population. Another 38 systems (both new and known) are estimated to be between 25 and 50 pc and are viable candidates for ground-based parallax efforts wishing to broaden the horizon of interest.
White dwarfs are the remnants of low and intermediate mass stars. Because of electron degeneracy, their evolution is just a simple gravothermal process of cooling. Recently, thanks to Gaia data, it has been possible to construct the luminosity function of massive (0.9 < M/Msun < 1.1) white dwarfs in the solar neighborhood (d < 100 pc). Since the lifetime of their progenitors is very short, the birth times of both, parents and daughters, are very close and allow to reconstruct the (effective) star formation rate. This rate started growing from zero during the early Galaxy and reached a maximum 6-7 Gyr ago. It declined and ~5 Gyr ago started to climb once more reaching a maximum 2 - 3 Gyr in the past and decreased since then. There are some traces of a recent star formation burst, but the method used here is not appropriate for recently born white dwarfs.
We analyze the 3D morphology and kinematics of 13 open clusters (OCs) located within 500 pc of the Sun, using Gaia EDR3 and kinematic data from literature. Members of OCs are identified using the unsupervised machine learning method StarGO, using 5D parameters (X, Y, Z, $mu_alpha cosdelta, mu_delta$). The OC sample covers an age range of 25Myr--2.65Gyr. We correct the asymmetric distance distribution due to the parallax error using Bayesian inversion. The uncertainty in the corrected distance for a cluster at 500~pc is 3.0--6.3~pc, depending on the intrinsic spatial distribution of its members. We determine the 3D morphology of the OCs in our sample and fit the spatial distribution of stars within the tidal radius in each cluster with an ellipsoid model. The shapes of the OCs are well-described with oblate spheroids (NGC2547, NGC2516, NGC2451A, NGC2451B, NGC2232), prolate spheroids (IC2602, IC4665, NGC2422, Blanco1, Coma Berenices), or triaxial ellipsoids (IC2391, NGC6633, NGC6774). The semi-major axis of the fitted ellipsoid is parallel to the Galactic plane for most clusters. Elongated filament-like substructures are detected in three young clusters (NGC2232, NGC2547, NGC2451B), while tidal-tail-like substructures (tidal tails) are found in older clusters (NGC2516, NGC6633, NGC6774, Blanco1, Coma Berenices). Most clusters may be super-virial and expanding. $N$-body models of rapid gas expulsion with an SFE of $approx 1/3$ are consistent with clusters more massive than $250rm M_odot$, while clusters less massive than 250$rm M_odot$ tend to agree with adiabatic gas expulsion models. Only six OCs (NGC2422, NGC6633, and NGC6774, NGC2232, Blanco1, Coma Berenices) show clear signs of mass segregation.
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