Star Formation in the Upper Scorpius OB Association: Evidence for a Supernova-Triggered Mini-Starburst

Thomas Preibisch & Hans Zinnecker

contributed talk at the Second "Three-Islands" Euroconference "Stellar Clusters and Associations: Convection, Rotation, and Dynamos", ASP Conference Series 198, p. 219, (2000)

Abstract

We have performed a 160 square-degree survey for low-mass pre-main sequence (PMS) stars in the Upper Scorpius OB association and present a new HR diagram for this association, containing about 100 PMS stars. A detailed analysis of the HR diagram, taking proper account of the uncertainties and the effects of unresolved binaries, suggests that the low-mass PMS stars have a mean age of about 5 Myr and show no evidence for a large age dispersion. Since this agrees very well with the age of the massive stars, we conclude that the star formation process in Upper Scorpius was probably triggered by the shock wave of a supernova explosion in the nearby Upper Centaurus-Lupus association, which crossed Upper Scorpius about 6 Myr ago.


For further information see our paper published in the Astronomical Journal, 117, 2381, (1999)

Retrieve the compressed Postscript file for a preprint or for the original paper

and also the previous paper the survey for young stars in Upper Scorpius.


Some nice images of the Upper Scorpius association can be found here .



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