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| Author(s): |
Phillip Andreas Brenner Galli
Total Authors: 1
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| Document type: | Doctoral Thesis |
| Press: | São Paulo. |
| Institution: | Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Instituto Astronômico e Geofísico (IAG/SBD) |
| Defense date: | 2012-12-18 |
| Examining board members: |
Ramachrisna Teixeira;
Claude Michel Roger Bertout;
Jacques Raymond Daniel Lepine;
Sylvio Ferraz de Mello;
Jorge Ramiro de La Reza
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| Advisor: | Ramachrisna Teixeira |
| Abstract | |
The main objective of this work is to determine the distance of pre-main sequence stars in nearby star-forming regions. A precise determination of the distance to individual stars is required to accurately determine the main physical parameters of each star and the structure of the Galaxy. Here we investigate the Lupus and Ophiuchus star-forming regions that contain one of the richest associations of T Tauri stars. Most pre-main sequence stars in these regions were neither observed by the Hipparcos satellite due to their magnitude nor have any trigonometric parallax measured from the ground due to their distance. The procedure that we use here to derive the distance to individual stars is based on the convergent point strategy and makes full use of proper motion and radial velocity data. We developed a new version of the convergent point search method that simultaneously determines the convergent point position and selects the most likely members of a moving group. Based on proper motion data and our new method we investigate the kinematic properties and perform a membership analysis of the stars in each star-forming region considered that allows us to identify a moving group with 114 stars in Lupus and 55 stars in Ophiuchus. We calculate the distance of each group member using published radial velocities, which we supplemented with new measurements, and the spatial velocity of the moving group for the remaining stars with unknown radial velocity. We derived parallaxes with accuracies of 1-2 mas yielding the average relative error of 25% on the distances. Finally, we investigate the properties of the various subgroups and the three dimensional structure of the Lupus and Ophiuchus cloud complex and conclude that significant depth effects exist. We use the new distances to refine the physical parameters (luminosity, mass and age) of stars and the HR-diagram for each star-forming region considered confirming the different age distribution of the two T Tauri subclasses. These results represent a first step towards better understanding the structure of star-forming regions and the early stages of star and planet formation. (AU) | |