Specific Star Forming Regions -- Oral Presentation
A Search for Pre-Main Sequence objects near the Taurus and Upper
Scorpius Star-Forming Regions
Catherine Slesnick, Caltech
John Carpenter (Caltech), Lynne Hillenbrand (Caltech)
We are conducting a wide-field ($\sim200$ square degrees)
B,R,I photometric monitoring campaign to identify new young objects
towards both the Taurus (1 Myr) and Upper Scorpius (3-5 Myr) star-forming
regions. Candidates were chosen for follow-up optical spectroscopy to
confirm membership and youth based on large-amplitude variability and/or
placement on a color-magnitude diagram. Our primary goals are 1) to
assess the mass and spatial distributions of young objects in the outer
parts of each association and 2) to study the actvity in young low mass
objects and properties of associated circumstellar disks through analysis
of H-alpha spectral line profiles and 2MASS colors for confirmed new
members. Comparison of results between the two regions will allow us to
study evolutionary effects. Our work will provide insight into several
aspects of star formation, including the universality of the low mass/substellar
IMF, the kinematics of stars as they are forming in their parental
molecular clouds, and the prescence/absence of age and mass segregation
from central cores to the more extended areas within a cluster. At this
conference we will present results from the completed photometric
monitoring part of our survey for both clusters and from our initial
spectroscopic efforts in Taurus.