New young star candidates in the taurus-auriga region as selected from the wide-field infrared survey explorer

L. M. Rebull, X. P. Koenig, D. L. Padgett, S. Terebey, P. M. McGehee, L. A. Hillenbrand, G. R. Knapp, D. Leisawitz, W. Liu, A. Noriega-Crespo, M. E. Ressler, K. R. Stapelfeldt, S. Fajardo-Acosta, A. Mainzer

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

64 Scopus citations

Abstract

The Taurus Molecular Cloud subtends a large solid angle on the sky, in excess of 250deg2. The search for legitimate Taurus members to date has been limited by sky coverage as well as the challenge of distinguishing members from field interlopers. The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer has recently observed the entire sky, and we take advantage of the opportunity to search for young stellar object (YSO) candidate Taurus members from A ∼ 260deg2 region designed to encompass previously identified Taurus members. We use near- and mid-infrared colors to select objects with apparent infrared excesses and incorporate other catalogs of ancillary data to present a list of rediscovered Taurus YSOs with infrared excesses (taken to be due to circumstellar disks), a list of rejected YSO candidates (largely galaxies), and a list of 94 surviving candidate new YSO-like Taurus members. There is likely to be contamination lingering in this candidate list, and follow-up spectra are warranted.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number4
JournalAstrophysical Journal, Supplement Series
Volume196
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 2011
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • circumstellar matter
  • infrared: stars
  • stars: formation
  • stars: pre-main sequence

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Astronomy and Astrophysics
  • Space and Planetary Science

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