The Southern Flanking Fields of the 25 Orionis Group
Abstract
Description
The stellar group surrounding the Be (B1Vpe) star 25 Orionis was discovered to be a pre-main-sequence population by the Centro de Investigaciones de Astronomia (CIDA) Orion Variability Survey and subsequent spectroscopy. We analyze Sloan Digital Sky Survey multi-epoch photometry to map the southern extent of the 25 Ori group and to characterize its pre-main-sequence population. We compare this group to the neighboring Orion OB1a and OB1b subassociations and to active star formation sites (NGC 2068/NGC 2071) within the Lynds 1630 dark cloud. We find that the 25 Ori group has a radius of 1.4 degrees, corresponding to 8-11 pc at the distances of Orion OB1a and OB1b. Given that the characteristic sizes of young open clusters are a few pc or less this suggests that 25 Ori is an unbound association rather than an open cluster. Due to its PMS population having a low Classical T Tauri fraction (~10%) we conclude that the 25 Ori group is of comparable age to the 11 Myr Orion OB1a subassociation.
37 pages, 13 figures, 2 tables (1 large); accepted for publication in AJ
37 pages, 13 figures, 2 tables (1 large); accepted for publication in AJ