The population of young low-mass stars in Trumpler 14^⋆,⋆⋆

¹ European Southern Observatory, Karl-Schwarzschild-Strasse 2, 85748 Garching bei München, Germany
e-mail: ditrich@eso.org
² Universitäts-Sternwarte München, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Scheinerstr. 1, 81679 Garching bei München, Germany
³ Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia (DIFA), Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna, Via Gobetti 93/2, 40129 Bologna, Italy
⁴ Department of Physics and Astronomy, Rice University, 6100 Main St – MS 108, Houston, TX 77005, USA
⁵ Centre for Extragalactic Astronomy, Department of Physics, Durham University, South Road, Durham DH1 3LE, UK
⁶ Institute for Computational Cosmology, Department of Physics, University of Durham, South Road, Durham DH1 3LE, UK
⁷ Dipartimento di Fisica, Università degli Studi di Milano, Via Celoria 16, 20133 Milano, Italy
⁸ Universität Heidelberg, Zentrum für Astronomie, Institut für Theoretische Astrophysik, Albert-Ueberle-Straße 2, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany
⁹ Universität Heidelberg, Interdisziplinäres Zentrum für Wissenschaftliches Rechnen, Im Neuenheimer Feld 205, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany
¹⁰ INAF-Istituto di Astrofisica e Planetologia Spaziali, Via del Fosso del Cavaliere 100, 00133 Rome, Italy
¹¹ Université Paris-Saclay, Université Paris Cité, CEA, CNRS, AIM, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette, France

Received: 6 July 2023
Accepted: 22 September 2023

Abstract

Massive star-forming regions are thought to be the most common birth environments in the Galaxy and the only birth places of very massive stars. Their presence in the stellar cluster alters the conditions within the cluster, impacting at the same time the evolution of other cluster members. In principle, copious amounts of ultraviolet radiation produced by massive stars can remove material from outer parts of the protoplanetary discs around low- and intermediate-mass stars in the process of external photoevaporation, effectively reducing the planet formation capabilities of those discs. Here, we present deep VLT/MUSE observations of low-mass stars in Trumpler 14, one of the most massive, young, and compact clusters in the Carina Nebula Complex. We provide spectral and stellar properties of 717 sources and based on the distribution of stellar ages, derive the cluster age of ∼1 Myr. The majority of the stars in our sample have masses ≤1 M_⊙, which makes our spectroscopic catalogue the deepest to date in term of mass and proves that detailed investigations of low-mass stars are possible in the massive but distant regions. Spectroscopic studies of low-mass members of the whole Carina Nebula Complex are missing. Our work marks an important step forward towards filling this gap and sets the stage for follow-up investigations of accretion properties in Trumpler 14.