Additional TWA members?

Spectroscopic verification of kinematically selected TWA candidates

¹ Department of Physics and Astronomy (UCLA), Los Angeles, CA 90095–1562, USA
² Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics, The Australian National University, ACT 2611, Australia

Corresponding author: I. Song, song@astro.ucla.edu

Received: 27 September 2001
Accepted: 24 January 2002

Abstract

We present spectroscopic measurements of the 23 new candidate members of the TW Hydrae Association from [CITE]. Based on Hα and Li 6708 Å strengths together with location on a color-magnitude diagram for Hipparcos TWA candidates, we found only three possible new members (TYC 7760-0835-1, TYC 8238-1462-1, and TYC 8234-2856-1) in addition to the already known member, TWA 19. This eliminated most of the candidates more distant than 100 pc. Three Tycho stars, almost certainly members of the Lower Centaurus Crux association, are the most distant members of the TWA. A claim of isotropic expansion of TWA has to be re-evaluated based on our new results. Generally, one cannot identify new members of a diffuse nearby stellar group based solely on kinematic data. To eliminate interlopers with similar kinematics, spectroscopic verification is essential.