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A Spitzer Study of Dusty Disks in the Scorpius-Centaurus OB Association
We have obtained Spitzer Space Telescope MIPS observations of 40 F- andG-type common proper motion members of the Scorpius-Centaurus OBassociation with ages between 5 and 20 Myr at 24 and 70 μm. We reportthe detection of 14 objects that possess 24 μm fluxes >=30% largerthan their predicted photospheres, tentatively corresponding to a diskfraction of >=35%, including seven objects that also possess 70 μmexcesses >=100 times larger than their predicted photospheres. The 24μm plus 70 μm excess sources possess high fractional infraredluminosities, LIR/L*=7×10-4 to3×10-3 either they possess optically thin, dusty βPictoris-like disks or compact, opaque HD 98800-like disks.
| Chemical enrichment and star formation in the Milky Way disk. III. Chemodynamical constraints
In this paper, we investigate some chemokinematical properties of theMilky Way disk, by using a sample composed by 424 late-type dwarfs. Weshow that the velocity dispersion of a stellar group correlates with theage of this group, according to a law proportional to t0.26,where t is the age of the stellar group. The temporal evolution of thevertex deviation is considered in detail. It is shown that the vertexdeviation does not seem to depend strongly on the age of the stellargroup. Previous studies in the literature seem to not have found it dueto the use of statistical ages for stellar groups, rather thanindividual ages. The possibility to use the orbital parameters of a starto derive information about its birthplace is investigated, and we showthat the mean galactocentric radius is likely to be the most reliablestellar birthplace indicator. However, this information cannot bepresently used to derive radial evolutionary constraints, due to anintrinsic bias present in all samples constructed from nearby stars. Anextensive discussion of the secular and stochastic heating mechanismscommonly invoked to explain the age-velocity dispersion relation ispresented. We suggest that the age-velocity dispersion relation couldreflect the gradual decrease in the turbulent velocity dispersion fromwhich disk stars form, a suggestion originally made by Tinsley &Larson (\cite{tinsley}, ApJ, 221, 554) and supported by several morerecent disk evolution calculations. A test to distinguish between thetwo types of models using high-redshift galaxies is proposed.Full Table 1 is only available in electronic form at the CDS viaanonymous ftp to cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr (130.79.128.5) or viahttp://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/cgi-bin/qcat?J/A+A/423/517
| The Geneva-Copenhagen survey of the Solar neighbourhood. Ages, metallicities, and kinematic properties of 14 000 F and G dwarfs
We present and discuss new determinations of metallicity, rotation, age,kinematics, and Galactic orbits for a complete, magnitude-limited, andkinematically unbiased sample of 16 682 nearby F and G dwarf stars. Our63 000 new, accurate radial-velocity observations for nearly 13 500stars allow identification of most of the binary stars in the sampleand, together with published uvbyβ photometry, Hipparcosparallaxes, Tycho-2 proper motions, and a few earlier radial velocities,complete the kinematic information for 14 139 stars. These high-qualityvelocity data are supplemented by effective temperatures andmetallicities newly derived from recent and/or revised calibrations. Theremaining stars either lack Hipparcos data or have fast rotation. Amajor effort has been devoted to the determination of new isochrone agesfor all stars for which this is possible. Particular attention has beengiven to a realistic treatment of statistical biases and errorestimates, as standard techniques tend to underestimate these effectsand introduce spurious features in the age distributions. Our ages agreewell with those by Edvardsson et al. (\cite{edv93}), despite severalastrophysical and computational improvements since then. We demonstrate,however, how strong observational and theoretical biases cause thedistribution of the observed ages to be very different from that of thetrue age distribution of the sample. Among the many basic relations ofthe Galactic disk that can be reinvestigated from the data presentedhere, we revisit the metallicity distribution of the G dwarfs and theage-metallicity, age-velocity, and metallicity-velocity relations of theSolar neighbourhood. Our first results confirm the lack of metal-poor Gdwarfs relative to closed-box model predictions (the ``G dwarfproblem''), the existence of radial metallicity gradients in the disk,the small change in mean metallicity of the thin disk since itsformation and the substantial scatter in metallicity at all ages, andthe continuing kinematic heating of the thin disk with an efficiencyconsistent with that expected for a combination of spiral arms and giantmolecular clouds. Distinct features in the distribution of the Vcomponent of the space motion are extended in age and metallicity,corresponding to the effects of stochastic spiral waves rather thanclassical moving groups, and may complicate the identification ofthick-disk stars from kinematic criteria. More advanced analyses of thisrich material will require careful simulations of the selection criteriafor the sample and the distribution of observational errors.Based on observations made with the Danish 1.5-m telescope at ESO, LaSilla, Chile, and with the Swiss 1-m telescope at Observatoire deHaute-Provence, France.Complete Tables 1 and 2 are only available in electronic form at the CDSvia anonymous ftp to cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr (130.79.128.5) or viahttp://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/cgi-bin/qcat?J/A+A/418/989
| Formation scenarios for the young stellar associations between galactic longitudes l = 280degr - 360degr
We investigate the spatial distribution, the space velocities and agedistribution of the pre-main sequence (PMS) stars belonging toOphiuchus, Lupus and Chamaeleon star-forming regions (SFRs), and of theyoung early-type star members of the Scorpius-Centaurus OB association.These young stellar associations extend over the galactic longituderange from 280degr to 360degr , and are at a distance interval ofaround 100 and 200 pc. This study is based on a compilation ofdistances, proper motions and radial velocities from the literature forthe kinematic properties, and of basic stellar data for the constructionof Hertzsprung-Russel diagrams. Although there was no well-known OBassociation in Chamaeleon, the distances and the proper motions of agroup of 21 B- and A-type stars, taken from the Hipparcos Catalogue,lead us to propose that they form a young association. We show that theyoung early-type stars of the OB associations and the PMS stars of theSFRs follow a similar spatial distribution, i.e., there is no separationbetween the low and the high-mass young stars. We find no difference inthe kinematics nor in the ages of these two populations studied.Considering not only the stars selected by kinematic criteria but thewhole sample of young early-type stars, the scattering of their propermotions is similar to that of the PMS stars and all the young starsexhibit a common direction of motion. The space velocities of theHipparcos PMS stars of each SFR are compatible with the mean values ofthe OB associations. The PMS stars in each SFR span a wide range of ages(from 1 to 20 Myr). The ages of the OB subgroups are 8-10 Myr for UpperScorpius (US), and 16-20 Myr for Upper Centaurus Lupus (UCL) and forLower Centaurus Crux (LCC). Thus, our results do not confirm that UCL isolder than the LCC association. Based on these results and theuncertainties associated with the age determination, we cannot say thatthere is indeed a difference in the age of the two populations. Weanalyze the different scenarios for the triggering of large-scalestar-formation that have been proposed up to now, and argue that mostprobably we are observing a spiral arm that passes close to the Sun. Thealignment of young stars and molecular clouds and the average velocityof the stars in the opposite direction to the Galactic rotation agreewith the expected behavior of star formation in nearby spiral arms.Tables 1 to 4 are only available in electronic form at the CDS viaanonymous ftp to cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr (130.79.128.5) or viahttp://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/cgi-bin/qcat?J/A+A/404/913
| Post-T Tauri Stars in the Nearest OB Association
We present results of a spectroscopic survey of X-ray- andproper-motion-selected samples of late-type stars in the LowerCentaurus-Crux (LCC) and Upper Centaurus-Lupus (UCL) subgroups of thenearest OB association: Scorpius-Centaurus. The primary goals of thesurvey are to determine the star formation history of the OB subgroupsand to assess the frequency of accreting stars in a sample dominated by``post-T Tauri'' pre-main-sequence (PMS) stars. We investigate twosamples: (1) proper-motion candidates from the ACT Catalog and TychoReference Catalog (TRC) with X-ray counterparts in the ROSAT All-SkySurvey (RASS) Bright Source Catalog and (2) G- and K-type stars in theHipparcos catalog found to be candidate members by de Zeeuw et al. Weobtained optical spectra of 130 candidates with the Siding Spring 2.3 mdual-beam spectrograph. PMS stars were identified by (1) strong Liλ6707 absorption, (2) subgiant surface gravities, (3) propermotions consistent with Sco-Cen membership, and (4) H-R diagrampositions consistent with being PMS. We find 93% of the RASS-ACT/TRCstars to be probable PMS members, compared with 73% of the Hipparcoscandidates. We demonstrate that measuring the gravity-sensitive bandratio of Sr II λ4077 to Fe I λ4071 is a valuable means ofdiscriminating PMS and zero-age main-sequence (ZAMS) stars. Usingsecular parallaxes and Hipparcos, Tycho-2, and Two Micron All Sky Surveyphotometry, we construct an H-R diagram. Depending on the choice ofpublished evolutionary tracks, we find the mean ages of the PMSpopulations to range between 17 and 23 Myr for LCC and 15 and 22 Myr forUCL. Taking into account observational errors, it appears that 95% ofthe low-mass star formation in each subgroup must have occurred in lessthan 8 Myr (LCC) and 12 Myr (UCL). Using the Bertelli et al. tracks, wefind main-sequence turnoff ages for Hipparcos B-type members to be16+/-1 Myr for LCC and 17+/-1 Myr for UCL. Contrary to previousfindings, it appears that LCC is coeval with, or slightly older than,UCL. The secular parallaxes of the Sco-Cen PMS stars yield distances of85-215 pc, with 12 of the LCC members lying within 100 pc of the Sun.Only one out of 110 (0.9+2.1-0.8%; 1 σ) PMSsolar-type stars in the sample with ages of 13+/-1 (s.e.)+/-6 (1σ) Myr and masses of 1.3+/-0.2 (1 σ) Msolar showsboth enhanced Hα emission and a K-band excess indicative ofaccretion from a truncated circumstellar disk: the nearby (d~=86 pc)classical T Tauri star PDS 66.
| New periodic variables from the Hipparcos epoch photometry
Two selection statistics are used to extract new candidate periodicvariables from the epoch photometry of the Hipparcos catalogue. Theprimary selection criterion is a signal-to-noise ratio. The dependenceof this statistic on the number of observations is calibrated usingabout 30000 randomly permuted Hipparcos data sets. A significance levelof 0.1 per cent is used to extract a first batch of candidate variables.The second criterion requires that the optimal frequency be unaffectedif the data are de-trended by low-order polynomials. We find 2675 newcandidate periodic variables, of which the majority (2082) are from theHipparcos`unsolved' variables. Potential problems with theinterpretation of the data (e.g. aliasing) are discussed.
| Astrometric radial velocities. III. Hipparcos measurements of nearby star clusters and associations
Radial motions of stars in nearby moving clusters are determined fromaccurate proper motions and trigonometric parallaxes, without any use ofspectroscopy. Assuming that cluster members share the same velocityvector (apart from a random dispersion), we apply a maximum-likelihoodmethod on astrometric data from Hipparcos to compute radial and spacevelocities (and their dispersions) in the Ursa Major, Hyades, ComaBerenices, Pleiades, and Praesepe clusters, and for theScorpius-Centaurus, alpha Persei, and ``HIP 98321'' associations. Theradial motion of the Hyades cluster is determined to within 0.4 kms-1 (standard error), and that of its individual stars towithin 0.6 km s-1. For other clusters, Hipparcos data yieldastrometric radial velocities with typical accuracies of a few kms-1. A comparison of these astrometric values withspectroscopic radial velocities in the literature shows a good generalagreement and, in the case of the best-determined Hyades cluster, alsopermits searches for subtle astrophysical differences, such as evidencefor enhanced convective blueshifts of F-dwarf spectra, and decreasedgravitational redshifts in giants. Similar comparisons for the ScorpiusOB2 complex indicate some expansion of its associations, albeit slowerthan expected from their ages. As a by-product from the radial-velocitysolutions, kinematically improved parallaxes for individual stars areobtained, enabling Hertzsprung-Russell diagrams with unprecedentedaccuracy in luminosity. For the Hyades (parallax accuracy 0.3 mas), itsmain sequence resembles a thin line, possibly with wiggles in it.Although this main sequence has underpopulated regions at certaincolours (previously suggested to be ``Böhm-Vitense gaps''), suchare not visible for other clusters, and are probably spurious. Futurespace astrometry missions carry a great potential for absoluteradial-velocity determinations, insensitive to the complexities ofstellar spectra. Based on observations by the ESA Hipparcos satellite.Extended versions of Tables \ref{tab1} and \ref{tab2} are available inelectronic form at the CDS via anonymous ftp to cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr(130.79.125.8) or viahttp://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/cgi-bin/qcat?J/A+A/381/446
| Dusty Debris around Solar-Type Stars: Temporal Disk Evolution
Using ISO-ISOPHOT, we carried out a survey of almost 150 stars to searchfor evidence of emission from dust orbiting young main-sequence stars,both in clusters and isolated systems. Over half of the detections arenew examples of dusty stellar systems and demonstrate that such dust canbe detected around numerous stars older than a few times 106yr. Fluxes at 60 and either 90 or 100 μm for the new excess sourcestogether with improved fluxes for a number of IRAS-identified sourcesare presented. Analysis of the excess luminosity relative to the stellarphotosphere shows a systematic decline of this excess with stellar ageconsistent with a power-law index of -2.
| Chemical enrichment and star formation in the Milky Way disk. I. Sample description and chromospheric age-metallicity relation
The age-metallicity relation of the solar neighbourhood is studied usinga sample of 552 late-type dwarfs. This sample was built from theintersection of photometric catalogues with chromospheric activitysurveys of the Mount Wilson group. For these stars, metallicities wereestimated from uvby data, and ages were calculated from theirchromospheric emission levels using a new metallicity-dependentchromospheric activity-age relation developed by Rocha-Pinto &Maciel (\cite{RPM98}). A careful estimate of the errors in thechromospheric age is made. The errors in the chromospheric indices areshown to include partially the effects of the stellar magnetic cycles,although a detailed treatment of this error is still beyond ourknowledge. It is shown that the results are not affected by the presenceof unresolved binaries in the sample. We derive an age-metallicityrelation which confirms the mean trend found by previous workers. Themean metallicity shows a slow, steady increase with time, amounting atleast 0.56 dex in 15 Gyr. The initial metallicity of the disk is around-0.70 dex, in agreement with the G dwarf metallicity distribution(Rocha-Pinto & Maciel \cite{RPM96}). According to our data, theintrinsic cosmic dispersion in metal abundances is around 0.13 dex, afactor of two smaller than that found by Edvardsson et al. (\cite{Edv}).We show that chromospheric ages are compatible with isochrone ages,within the expected errors, so that the difference in the scatter cannotbe caused by the accuracy of our ages and metallicities. This reinforcessome suggestions that the Edvarsson et al.'s sample is not suitable tothe determination of the age-metallicity relation.
| ROSAT High Resolution Imager Identifications of Suspected Stellar Sources from the Einstein Slew Survey
We present analysis of a series of ROSAT High Resolution Imager (HRI)observations of 16 X-ray detections from the Einstein Slew Survey (ESS).The data were taken to resolve ambiguous ESS identifications based onoptical spectroscopy. For 10 of the 16 detections, the previousidentification has been confirmed-six with solar-type stars (spectraltypes F-K), one each with a cataclysmic variable, a B2 V, a dMe star,and one with a BL Lac object. For another detection, two potentialcounterparts are unresolvable even with the HRI. The HRI does resolvetwo other ESS detections into two distinct X-ray sources, but no HRIsource is found for the remaining three X-ray detections. HRI-derivedfluxes are consistent with those measured by the ROSAT All-Sky Surveyfor their 12 common detections, and improved positions are obtained forthese sources. We calculate values of f_X/f_V and L_X for these starswhere possible and find values consistent with those expected forcorresponding spectral types.
| A HIPPARCOS Census of the Nearby OB Associations
A comprehensive census of the stellar content of the OB associationswithin 1 kpc from the Sun is presented, based on Hipparcos positions,proper motions, and parallaxes. It is a key part of a long-term projectto study the formation, structure, and evolution of nearby young stellargroups and related star-forming regions. OB associations are unbound``moving groups,'' which can be detected kinematically because of theirsmall internal velocity dispersion. The nearby associations have a largeextent on the sky, which traditionally has limited astrometricmembership determination to bright stars (V<~6 mag), with spectraltypes earlier than ~B5. The Hipparcos measurements allow a majorimprovement in this situation. Moving groups are identified in theHipparcos Catalog by combining de Bruijne's refurbished convergent pointmethod with the ``Spaghetti method'' of Hoogerwerf & Aguilar.Astrometric members are listed for 12 young stellar groups, out to adistance of ~650 pc. These are the three subgroups Upper Scorpius, UpperCentaurus Lupus, and Lower Centaurus Crux of Sco OB2, as well as VelOB2, Tr 10, Col 121, Per OB2, alpha Persei (Per OB3), Cas-Tau, Lac OB1,Cep OB2, and a new group in Cepheus, designated as Cep OB6. Theselection procedure corrects the list of previously known astrometricand photometric B- and A-type members in these groups and identifiesmany new members, including a significant number of F stars, as well asevolved stars, e.g., the Wolf-Rayet stars gamma^2 Vel (WR 11) in Vel OB2and EZ CMa (WR 6) in Col 121, and the classical Cepheid delta Cep in CepOB6. Membership probabilities are given for all selected stars. MonteCarlo simulations are used to estimate the expected number of interloperfield stars. In the nearest associations, notably in Sco OB2, thelater-type members include T Tauri objects and other stars in the finalpre-main-sequence phase. This provides a firm link between the classicalhigh-mass stellar content and ongoing low-mass star formation. Detailedstudies of these 12 groups, and their relation to the surroundinginterstellar medium, will be presented elsewhere. Astrometric evidencefor moving groups in the fields of R CrA, CMa OB1, Mon OB1, Ori OB1, CamOB1, Cep OB3, Cep OB4, Cyg OB4, Cyg OB7, and Sct OB2, is inconclusive.OB associations do exist in many of these regions, but they are eitherat distances beyond ~500 pc where the Hipparcos parallaxes are oflimited use, or they have unfavorable kinematics, so that the groupproper motion does not distinguish it from the field stars in theGalactic disk. The mean distances of the well-established groups aresystematically smaller than the pre-Hipparcos photometric estimates.While part of this may be caused by the improved membership lists, arecalibration of the upper main sequence in the Hertzsprung-Russelldiagram may be called for. The mean motions display a systematicpattern, which is discussed in relation to the Gould Belt. Six of the 12detected moving groups do not appear in the classical list of nearby OBassociations. This is sometimes caused by the absence of O stars, but inother cases a previously known open cluster turns out to be (part of) anextended OB association. The number of unbound young stellar groups inthe solar neighborhood may be significantly larger than thoughtpreviously.
| A Multiplicity Survey of Chromospherically Active and Inactive Stars
Surveys of three samples of solar-type stars, segregated bychromospheric emission level, were made to determine their multiplicityfractions and to investigate the evolution of multiplicity with age. Intotal, 245 stars were searched for companions with DeltaV <= 3.0 andseparations of 0.035" to 1.08" using optical speckle interferometry. Byincorporating the visual micrometer survey for duplicity of theLamontHussey Observatory, the angular coverage was extended to 5.0" withno change in the DeltaV limit. This magnitude difference allows massratios of 0.63 and larger to be detected throughout a search region of2-127 AU for the stars observed. The 84 primaries observed in thechromospherically active sample are presumably part of a youngpopulation and are found to have a multiplicity fraction of 17.9% +/-4.6%. The sample of 118 inactive, presumably older, primaries wereselected and observed using identical methods and are found to have amultiplicity fraction of only 8.5% +/- 2.7%. Given the known linkbetween chromospheric activity and age, these results tentatively implya decreasing stellar multiplicity fraction from 1 to 4 Gyr, theapproximate ages of the two samples. Finally, only two of the 14 veryactive primaries observed were found to have a companion meeting thesurvey detection parameters. In this case, many of the systems areeither very young, or close, RS CVn type multiples that are unresolvableusing the techniques employed here.
| Metallicity effects on the chromospheric activity-age relation for late-type dwarfs
We show that there is a relationship between the age excess, defined asthe difference between the stellar isochrone and chromospheric ages, andthe metallicity as measured by the index [Fe/H] for late-type dwarfs.The chromospheric age tends to be lower than the isochrone age formetal-poor stars, and the opposite occurs for metal-rich objects. Wesuggest that this could be an effect of neglecting the metallicitydependence of the calibrated chromospheric emission-age relation. Wepropose a correction to account for this dependence. We also investigatethe metallicity distributions of these stars, and show that there aredistinct trends according to the chromospheric activity level. Inactivestars have a metallicity distribution which resembles the metallicitydistribution of solar neighbourhood stars, while active stars appear tobe concentrated in an activity strip on the logR'_HKx[Fe/H] diagram. Weprovide some explanations for these trends, and show that thechromospheric emission-age relation probably has different slopes on thetwo sides of the Vaughan-Preston gap.
| High-Resolution Spectroscopy of Some Very Active Southern Stars
We have obtained high-resolution echelle spectra of 18 solar-type starsthat an earlier survey showed to have very high levels of Ca ii H and Kemission. Most of these stars belong to close binary systems, but fiveremain as probable single stars or well-separated binaries that areyounger than the Pleiades on the basis of their lithium abundances andHα emission. Three of these probable single stars also lie morethan 1 mag above the main sequence in a color-magnitude diagram, andappear to have ages of 10 to 15 Myr. Two of them, HD 202917 and HD222259, also appear to have a kinematic association with thepre-main-sequence multiple system HD 98800.
| Optical and X-Ray Characteristics of Stars Detected in the Einstein Slew Survey
We detect X-rays for the first time from 63 cool (types AM) stars. Thesestars are part of the 229 total stellar X-ray sources identified to datein the Einstein Slew Survey (hereafter Slew). We also list new X-raydata on one A star that may have a corona, five OB stars, and reportdiscoveries of two new T Tauri stars and two new cataclysmic variables.The stellar content of the Slew high-latitude subset (currently 93%identified for |b_II_| > 20^deg^) is 26%. This agrees well with theEinstein Extended Medium Sensitivity Survey (EMSS) stellar sample, whichonly considered high latitudes. Because of the large solid angle coveredby the Slew, and its shallow limiting flux, the sample will better probethe bright end of the stellar X-ray luminosity function (L_X_ >10^30^ ergs s^-1^). Presently (based on the 221 Slew stars with knownspectral types), the sample is dominated by late-type systems (coolerthan F; 68%). These include dMe's, BY Dra, RS CVn, and FK Comae systems.Based on the limiting magnitudes of catalogs searched to date, the Slewis assessed to be complete for spectral types earlier than K. Hence, Kand M systems will be prominent in the ~50 as yet unidentified stars. Wehave embarked on an extensive program to (1) confirm the X-rayidentifications with the optical counterparts; (2) search for Ca II Hand K and Balmer line emission as activity signatures; and (3) searchfor supporting evidence of magnetic activity by measuring rotationalvelocities and relating them to X-ray luminosity level. Of 64 proposedcoronal systems observed to date, we have confirmed 44 active stars,while in the remaining 20 we have been unable to find definitiveactivity. We have confirmed an additional 19 active stars from stellardatabase searches, and reclassified nine systems as having nonstellaroptical counterparts from optical follow-up identification work andextragalactic database searches. We discuss notable new discoveries.From the sample of single active F7-MS Slew stars with measured ν sini-values, we find a strong (99.9% confidence level) linear correlationof X-ray luminosity with ν sin i and with stellar radius (R).However, L_X_ is uncorrelated with angular rotation speed at the 99%level. For the combined Slew and EMSS single star F7-MS sample, we findthe same 99.9% ν sin i-L_X_ and R-L_X_ correlations. The L_X_-νsin i relation for the combined sample appears to flatten with respectto the quadratic behavior seen for optically selected stellar samples atrotational velocities in excess of ~16 km s^-1^. For the unevolvedsubset of the Slew single star sample, we also find a correlationbetween L_X_ and Rossby number (R_0_; more than 99% confidence). Aleast-squares fit gives L_X_ ~ R_0_^-0.4^, which is similarly flatterthan the quadratic dependence seen in optical samples. Using the stellarsurface X-ray flux F_X_ versus B - V diagram, we interpret these resultsas saturation of the stellar surface by active regions at F_X_/F_bol_ ~10^-3^.
| A Survey of Ca II H and K Chromospheric Emission in Southern Solar-Type Stars
More than 800 southern stars within 50 pc have been observed forchromospheric emission in the cores of the Ca II H and K lines. Most ofthe sample targets were chosen to be G dwarfs on the basis of colors andspectral types. The bimodal distribution in stellar activity first notedin a sample of northern stars by Vaughan and Preston in 1980 isconfirmed, and the percentage of active stars, about 30%, is remarkablyconsistent between the northern and southern surveys. This is especiallycompelling given that we have used an entirely different instrumentalsetup and stellar sample than used in the previous study. Comparisons tothe Sun, a relatively inactive star, show that most nearby solar-typestars have a similar activity level, and presumably a similar age. Weidentify two additional subsamples of stars -- a very active group, anda very inactive group. The very active group may be made up of youngstars near the Sun, accounting for only a few percent of the sample, andappears to be less than ~0.1 Gyr old. Included in this high-activitytail of the distribution, however, is a subset of very close binaries ofthe RS CVn or W UMa types. The remaining members of this population maybe undetected close binaries or very young single stars. The veryinactive group of stars, contributting ~5%--10% to the total sample, maybe those caught in a Maunder Minimum type phase. If the observations ofthe survey stars are considered to be a sequence of snapshots of the Sunduring its life, we might expect that the Sun will spend about 10% ofthe remainder of its main sequence life in a Maunder Minimum phase.
| The Einstein Slew Survey
A catalog of 819 sources detected in the Einstein IPC Slew Survey of theX-ray sky is presented; 313 of the sources were not previously known asX-ray sources. Typical count rates are 0.1 IPC count/s, roughlyequivalent to a flux of 3 x 10 exp -12 ergs/sq cm s. The sources havepositional uncertainties of 1.2 arcmin (90 percent confidence) radius,based on a subset of 452 sources identified with previously knownpointlike X-ray sources (i.e., extent less than 3 arcmin).Identifications based on a number of existing catalogs of X-ray andoptical objects are proposed for 637 of the sources, 78 percent of thesurvey (within a 3-arcmin error radius) including 133 identifications ofnew X-ray sources. A public identification data base for the Slew Surveysources will be maintained at CfA, and contributions to this data baseare invited.
| The chemical evolution of the solar neighborhood. I - A bias-free reduction technique and data sample
The possible ways of measuring the age-metallicity relation for thegalactic disk in the neighborhood of the sun are discussed. It is shownthat the use of a field star sample chosen on the basis of effectivetemperature introduces a bias which results in a monotonic increase inthe metal abundance of the disk with time. However, if theage-metallicity relation for the disk can be shown to satisfy certaincriteria, the bias introduced in such a sample can be neglected: thegalactic disk apparently satisfies the criteria. It is concluded that asample analyzed through the use of uvby and H(beta) photometry inconjunction with a self-consistent set of theoretical isochronesprovides the least biased, most accurate estimate of the age-metallicityrelation for the disk.
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Observation and Astrometry data
| Constellation: | Musca |
| Right ascension: | 13h43m08.70s |
| Declination: | -69°07'39.5" |
| Apparent magnitude: | 7.598 |
| Distance: | 124.224 parsecs |
| Proper motion RA: | -31.6 |
| Proper motion Dec: | -19.9 |
| B-T magnitude: | 8.484 |
| V-T magnitude: | 7.672 |
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INHABITED SKY
