No Arabic abstract
Stellar kinematic groups are kinematical coherent groups of stars that might have a common origin. These groups are dispersed throughout the Galaxy over time by the tidal effects of both Galactic rotation and disc heating, although their chemical content remains unchanged. The aim of chemical tagging is to establish that the abundances of every element in the analysis are homogeneus among the members. We study the case of the Hyades Supercluster to compile a reliable list of members (FGK stars) based on our chemical tagging analysis. For a total of 61 stars from the Hyades Supercluster, stellar atmospheric parameters (Teff, logg, xi, and [Fe/H]) are determined using our code called StePar, which is based on the sensitivity to the stellar atmospheric parameters of the iron EWs measured in the spectra. We derive the chemical abundances of 20 elements and find that their [X/Fe] ratios are consistent with Galactic abundance trends reported in previous studies. The chemical tagging method is applied with a carefully developed differential abundance analysis of each candidate member of the Hyades Supercluster, using a well-known member of the Hyades cluster as a reference (vB 153). We find that only 28 stars (26 dwarfs and 2 giants) are members, i.e. that 46% of our candidates are members based on the differential abundance analysis. This result confirms that the Hyades Supercluster cannot originate solely from the Hyades cluster.
Stellar Kinematic Groups are kinematical coherent groups of stars which may share a common origin. These groups spread through the Galaxy over time due to tidal effects caused by galactic rotation and disk heating, however the chemical information survives. The aim of chemical tagging is to show that abundances of every element in the analysis must be homogeneous between members. We have studied the case of the Hyades Supercluster in order to compile a reliable list of members (FGK stars) based on chemical tagging information and spectroscopic age determinations of this supercluster. This information has been derived from high-resolution echelle spectra obtained during our surveys of late-type stars. For a small subsample of the Hyades Supercluster, stellar atmospheric parameters (T_eff, log g, xi and [Fe/H]) have been determined using an automatic code which takes into account the sensibility of iron EWs measured in the spectra. We have derived absolute abundances consistent with galactic abundance trends reported in previous studies. The chemical tagging method has been applied with a carefully differential abundance analysis of each candidate member of the Hyades Supercluster, using a well-known member of the Hyades cluster as reference. A preliminary research has allowed us to find out which stars are members based on their differential abundances and spectroscopic ages.
We present a kinematically-unbiased search to identify young, nearby low-mass members of kinematic moving groups (MGs). Objects with both rotation periods shorter than 5 days in the SuperWASP All-Sky Survey and X-ray counterparts in the ROSAT All-Sky Survey were chosen to create a catalog of several thousand rapidly-rotating, X-ray active FGK stars. These objects are expected to be either young single stars or tidally-locked spectroscopic binaries. We obtained optical spectra for a sub-sample of 146 stars to determine their ages and kinematics, and in some cases repeat radial velocity (RV) measurements were used to identify binarity. Twenty-six stars are found to have lithium abundances consistent with an age of <=200 Myr, and show no evidence for binarity and in most cases measurements of H-alpha and vsin i support their youthful status. Based on their youth, their radial velocities and estimates of their 3-dimensional kinematics, we find 11 objects that may be members of known MGs, 8 that do not appear associated with any young MG and a further 7 that are close to the kinematics of the recently proposed Octans-Near MG, and which may be the first members of this MG found in the northern hemisphere. The initial search mechanism was ~18 per cent efficient at identifying likely-single stars younger than 200 Myr, of which 80 per cent were early-K spectral types.
In the last three decades several hundred nearby members of young stellar moving groups (MGs) have been identified, but there has been less systematic effort to quantify or characterise young stars that do not belong to previously identified MGs. Using a kinematically unbiased sample of 225 lithium-rich stars within 100 pc, we find that only $50 pm 10$ per cent of young ($lesssim 125$ Myr), low-mass ($0.5<M/M_{odot}<1.0$) stars, are kinematically associated with known MGs. Whilst we find some evidence that six of the non-MG stars may be connected with the Lower Centaurus-Crux association, the rest form a kinematically hotter population, much more broadly dispersed in velocity, and with no obvious concentrations in space. The mass distributions of the MG members and non-MG stars is similar, but the non-MG stars may be older on average. We briefly discuss several explanations for the origin of the non-MG population.
We present a high-precision differential abundance analysis of 16 solar-type stars in the Hyades open cluster based on high resolution, high signal-to-noise ratio (S/N ~ 350 - 400) spectra obtained from the McDonald 2.7m telescope. We derived stellar parameters and differential chemical abundances for 19 elements (C, O, Na, Mg, Al, Si, S, Ca, Sc, Ti, V, Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, and Ba) with uncertainties as low as ~ 0.01 - 0.02 dex. Our main results include: (1) there is no clear chemical signature of planet formation detected among the sample stars, i.e., no correlations in abundances versus condensation temperature; (2) the observed abundance dispersions are a factor of ~ 1.5 - 2 larger than the average measurement errors for most elements; (3) there are positive correlations, of high statistical significance, between the abundances of at least 90% of pairs of elements. We demonstrate that none of these findings can be explained by errors due to the stellar parameters. Our results reveal that the Hyades is chemically inhomogeneous at the 0.02 dex level. Possible explanations for the abundance variations include (1) inhomogeneous chemical evolution in the proto-cluster environment, (2) supernova ejection in the proto-cluster cloud, and (3) pollution of metal-poor gas before complete mixing of the proto-cluster cloud. Our results provide significant new constraints on the chemical composition of open clusters and a challenge to the current view of Galactic archeology.
In the Gaia era, the majority of stars in the Solar neighbourhood have parallaxes and proper motions precisely determined while spectroscopic age indicators are still missing for a large fraction of low-mass young stars. In this work we select 756 overluminous late K and early M young star candidates in the southern sky and observe them over 64 nights with the ANU 2.3m Telescope at Siding Spring Observatory using the Echelle (R=24,000) and Wide Field spectrographs (WiFeS, R=3000-7000). Our selection is kinematically unbiased to minimize the preference against low-mass members of stellar associations that dissipate first, and to include potential members of diffuse components. We provide measurements of H$alpha$ and calcium H&K emission, as well as lithium absorption line, that enable identification of stars as young as $sim$10-30 Myr which is a typical age of a stellar association. We report on 346 stars showing a detectable lithium line, 318 of which are not found in the known catalogs of young stars. We also report 126 additional stars in our sample which have no detectable lithium but signs of stellar activity indicating youth. Radial velocities are determined for WiFeS spectra with a precision of 3.2 $mathrm{km;s^{-1}}$ and 1.5 $mathrm{km;s^{-1}}$ for the Echelle sample.