Chamaeleon
| dc.creator | Luhman, Kevin L. | |
| dc.date | 2008-08-23 | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2026-07-07T09:58:08Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2026-07-07T09:58:08Z | |
| dc.description | The dark clouds in the constellation of Chamaeleon have distances of 160-180 pc from the Sun and a total mass of ~5000 M_sun. The three main clouds, Cha I, II, and III, have angular sizes of a few square degrees and maximum extinctions of A_V=5-10. Most of the star formation in these clouds is occurring in Cha I, with the remainder in Cha II. The current census of Cha I contains 237 known members, 33 of which have spectral types indicative of brown dwarfs (>M6). Approximately 50 members of Cha II have been identified, including a few brown dwarfs. When interpreted with the evolutionary models of Chabrier and Baraffe, the H-R diagram for Cha I exhibits a median age of ~2 Myr, making it coeval with IC 348 and slightly older than Taurus (~1 Myr). The IMF of Cha I reaches a maximum at a mass of 0.1-0.15 M_sun, and thus closely resembles the IMFs in IC 348 and the Orion Nebula Cluster. The disk fraction in Cha I is roughly constant at ~50% from 0.01 to 0.3 M_sun and increases to ~65% at higher masses. In comparison, IC 348 has a similar disk fraction at low masses but a much lower disk fraction at M>1 M_sun, indicating that solar-type stars have longer disk lifetimes in Cha I. | |
| dc.description | to appear in the Handbook of Star Forming Regions, ASP Monograph Series | |
| dc.identifier | https://arxiv.org/abs/0808.3207 | |
| dc.identifier | http://arxiv.org/abs/0808.3207 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://salesiana.dossiersoluciones.com/handle/123456789/167608 | |
| dc.subject | Astrophysics | |
| dc.title | Chamaeleon | |
| dc.type | text |