Browsing by Subject "ob association"

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Discovery of Seven Companions To Intermediate-Mass Stars With Extreme Mass Ratios in the Scorpius-Centaurus Association
(2015-06) Hinkley, S.; Kraus, Adam L.; Ireland, Michael J.; Cheetham, Anthony; Carpenter, John M.; Tuthill, Peter; Lacour, Sylvestre; Evans, Thomas M.; Haubois, Xaubois; Kraus, Adam L.
We report the detection of seven low-mass companions to intermediate-mass stars (SpT B/A/F; M similar to 1.5-4.5M(circle dot)) in the Scorpius-Centaurus (Sco-Cen) Association using nonredundant aperture masking interferometry. Our newly detected objects have contrasts Delta L' approximate to 4-6, corresponding to masses as low as similar to 20 M-Jup and mass ratios of q approximate to 0.01-0.08, depending on the assumed age of the target stars. With projected separations rho approximate to 10-30 AU, our aperture masking detections sample an orbital region previously unprobed by conventional adaptive optics imaging of intermediate-mass Sco-Cen stars covering much larger orbital radii (similar to 30-3000 AU). At such orbital separations, these objects resemble higher-mass versions of the directly imaged planetary mass companions to the 10-30 Myr, intermediate-mass stars HR 8799, beta Pictoris, and HD 95086. These newly discovered companions span the brown dwarf desert, and their masses and orbital radii provide a new constraint on models of the Formation of low-mass stellar and substellar companions to intermediate-mass stars.
The Mass-Radius Relation Of Young Stars. I. Usco 5, An M4.5 Eclipsing Binary In Upper Scorpius Observed By K2
(2015-07) Kraus, Adam L.; Cody, Ann Marie; Covey, Kevin R.; Rizzuto, Aaron C.; Mann, Andrew W.; Ireland, Michael J.; Kraus, Adam L.; Rizzuto, Aaron C.; Mann, Andrew W.
We present the discovery that UScoCTIO 5, a known spectroscopic binary in the Upper Scorpius star-forming region (P = 34 days, M-tot sin(i) = 0.64M(circle dot)), is an eclipsing system with both primary and secondary eclipses apparent in K2 light curves obtained during Campaign 2. We have simultaneously fit the eclipse profiles from the K2 light curves and the existing RV data to demonstrate that UScoCTIO 5 consists of a pair of nearly identical M4.5 stars with M-A = 0.329 +/- 0.002 M-circle dot, R-A = 0.834 +/- 0.006 R-circle dot, M-B = 0.317 +/- 0.002 M-circle dot, and R-B = 0.810 +/- 0.006 R-circle dot. The radii are broadly consistent with pre-main-sequence ages predicted by stellar evolutionary models, but none agree to within the uncertainties. All models predict systematically incorrect masses at the 25%-50% level for the HR diagram position of these mid-M dwarfs, suggesting significant modifications to mass-dependent outcomes of star and planet formation. The form of the discrepancy for most model sets is not that they predict luminosities that are too low, but rather that they predict temperatures that are too high, suggesting that the models do not fully encompass the physics of energy transport (via convection and/or missing opacities) and/or a miscalibration of the SpT-T-eff scale. The simplest modification to the models (changing T-eff to match observations) would yield an older age for this system, in line with the recently proposed older age of Upper Scorpius (tau similar to 11 Myr).