Discovery of new members of the nearby young stellar association in Cepheus^⋆,⋆⋆

¹ Institut für Astronomie und Astrophysik, Eberhard Karls Universität, Sand 1, 72076 Tübingen, Germany
e-mail: klutsch@astro.uni-tuebingen.de
² INAF-Osservatorio Astrofisico di Catania, Via S. Sofia 78, 95123 Catania, Italy
³ Observatoire Astronomique, Université de Strasbourg & CNRS, UMR 7550, 11 Rue de l’Université, 67000 Strasbourg, France
⁴ Departamento de Física de la Tierra y Astrofísica and IPARCOS-UCM (Instituto de Física de Partículas y del Cosmos de la UCM), Facultad de Ciencias Físicas, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 28040 Madrid, Spain
⁵ Aix Marseille Univ, CNRS, CNES, LAM, Marseille, France
⁶ INAF–Osservatorio Astronomico di Palermo, Piazza del Parlamento 1, 90134 Palermo, Italy

Received: 29 November 2019
Accepted: 7 March 2020

Abstract

Context. Young field stars are hardly distinguishable from older ones because their space motion rapidly mixes them with the stellar population of the Galactic plane. Nevertheless, a careful target selection allows for young stars to be spotted throughout the sky.

Aims. We aim to identify additional sources associated with the four young comoving stars that we discovered towards the CO Cepheus void and to provide a comprehensive view of the Cepheus association.

Methods. Based on multivariate analysis methods, we have built an extended sample of 193 young star candidates, which are the optical and infrared counterparts of ROSAT All-Sky Survey and XMM-Newton X-ray sources. From optical spectroscopic observations, we measured their radial velocity with the cross-correlation technique. We derived their atmospheric parameters and projected rotational velocity with the code ROTFIT. We applied the subtraction of inactive templates to measure the lithium equivalent width, from which we infer their lithium abundance and age. Finally, we studied their kinematics using the second Gaia data release.

Results. Our sample is mainly composed of young or active stars and multiple systems. We identify two distinct populations of young stars that are spatially and kinematically separated. Those with an age between 100 and 300 Myr are mostly projected towards the Galactic plane. In contrast, 23 of the 37 sources younger than 30 Myr are located in the CO Cepheus void, and 21 of them belong to the stellar kinematic group that we previously reported in this sky area. We report a total of 32 bona fide members and nine candidates for this nearby (distance = 157 ± 10 pc) young (age = 10–20 Myr) stellar association. According to the spatial distribution of its members, the original cluster is already dispersed and partially mixed with the local population of the Galactic plane.