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Characterizing The Nearest Young Moving Groups, Kyle Mccarthy

Theses and Dissertations--Physics and Astronomy

Moving groups are associations of stars which originated from the same star forming region. These groups are typically young (< 200 Myr) since they have not dissipated into the galactic field population. Over the last 15 years, roughly 10 such moving groups have been found with distances < 150 pc (7 with distances < 100 pc), each with a unique velocity and position.

This work first investigates the likelihood to resolve star from two moving groups (AB Doradus and Beta Pictoris) using high spacial resolution optical interferrometry and found 5 AB Doradus stars and 1 Beta Pictoris star with declinations > -30 could be spacially resolved.

To more deeply characterize individual groups, we used the 2.7m telescope at the McDonald Observatory to observe 10 proposed AB Doradus stars and 5 proposed Octans-Near stars (3 probable members, 2 possible) with high resolution (R ~60,000) optical …