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Runaway and walkaway stars from the ONC with Gaia DR2

Schoettler, Christina ; De Bruijne, Jos ; Vaher, Eero LU and Parker, Richard J. (2020) In Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 495(3). p.3104-3123
Abstract

Theory predicts that we should find fast, ejected (runaway) stars of all masses around dense, young star-forming regions. N-body simulations show that the number and distribution of these ejected stars could be used to constrain the initial spatial and kinematic substructure of the regions. We search for runaway and slower walkaway stars within 100 pc of the Orion Nebula Cluster (ONC) using Gaia DR2 astrometry and photometry. We compare our findings to predictions for the number and velocity distributions of runaway stars from simulations that we run for 4 Myr with initial conditions tailored to the ONC. In Gaia DR2, we find 31 runaway and 54 walkaway candidates based on proper motion, but not all of these are viable candidates in three... (More)

Theory predicts that we should find fast, ejected (runaway) stars of all masses around dense, young star-forming regions. N-body simulations show that the number and distribution of these ejected stars could be used to constrain the initial spatial and kinematic substructure of the regions. We search for runaway and slower walkaway stars within 100 pc of the Orion Nebula Cluster (ONC) using Gaia DR2 astrometry and photometry. We compare our findings to predictions for the number and velocity distributions of runaway stars from simulations that we run for 4 Myr with initial conditions tailored to the ONC. In Gaia DR2, we find 31 runaway and 54 walkaway candidates based on proper motion, but not all of these are viable candidates in three dimensions. About 40 per cent are missing radial velocities, but we can trace back nine 3D runaways and 24 3D walkaways to the ONC, all of which are low/intermediate mass (<8 M⊠). Our simulations show that the number of runaways within 100 pc decreases the older a region is (as they quickly travel beyond this boundary), whereas the number of walkaways increases up to 3 Myr. We find fewer walkaways in Gaia DR2 than the maximum suggested from our simulations, which may be due to observational incompleteness. However, the number of Gaia DR2 runaways agrees with the number from our simulations during an age of ∼1.3-2.4 Myr, allowing us to confirm existing age estimates for the ONC (and potentially other star-forming regions) using runaway stars.

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author
; ; and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
keywords
astrometry, open clusters and associations: individual: Orion Nebula Cluster, stars: kinematics and dynamics
in
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
volume
495
issue
3
pages
20 pages
publisher
Oxford University Press
external identifiers
  • scopus:85091073288
ISSN
0035-8711
DOI
10.1093/mnras/staa1228
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
ddb186cf-90a4-4a1c-91e6-a5399cc5c2b3
date added to LUP
2020-12-22 11:04:19
date last changed
2024-04-03 17:53:12
@article{ddb186cf-90a4-4a1c-91e6-a5399cc5c2b3,
  abstract     = {{<p>Theory predicts that we should find fast, ejected (runaway) stars of all masses around dense, young star-forming regions. N-body simulations show that the number and distribution of these ejected stars could be used to constrain the initial spatial and kinematic substructure of the regions. We search for runaway and slower walkaway stars within 100 pc of the Orion Nebula Cluster (ONC) using Gaia DR2 astrometry and photometry. We compare our findings to predictions for the number and velocity distributions of runaway stars from simulations that we run for 4 Myr with initial conditions tailored to the ONC. In Gaia DR2, we find 31 runaway and 54 walkaway candidates based on proper motion, but not all of these are viable candidates in three dimensions. About 40 per cent are missing radial velocities, but we can trace back nine 3D runaways and 24 3D walkaways to the ONC, all of which are low/intermediate mass (&lt;8 M⊠). Our simulations show that the number of runaways within 100 pc decreases the older a region is (as they quickly travel beyond this boundary), whereas the number of walkaways increases up to 3 Myr. We find fewer walkaways in Gaia DR2 than the maximum suggested from our simulations, which may be due to observational incompleteness. However, the number of Gaia DR2 runaways agrees with the number from our simulations during an age of ∼1.3-2.4 Myr, allowing us to confirm existing age estimates for the ONC (and potentially other star-forming regions) using runaway stars. </p>}},
  author       = {{Schoettler, Christina and De Bruijne, Jos and Vaher, Eero and Parker, Richard J.}},
  issn         = {{0035-8711}},
  keywords     = {{astrometry; open clusters and associations: individual: Orion Nebula Cluster; stars: kinematics and dynamics}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  number       = {{3}},
  pages        = {{3104--3123}},
  publisher    = {{Oxford University Press}},
  series       = {{Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society}},
  title        = {{Runaway and walkaway stars from the ONC with Gaia DR2}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/mnras/staa1228}},
  doi          = {{10.1093/mnras/staa1228}},
  volume       = {{495}},
  year         = {{2020}},
}