Age spreads in star forming regions: The lithium test in the Orion Nebula Cluster

Abstract

We present the initial results of a study of the surface lithium abundance in a sample of low-mass members (M~0.4-1.0 Msun) of the Orion Nebula Cluster (ONC) that provide an independent clock to estimate stellar ages. We report discovery of significant depletion of lithium in four stars with estimated mass of ~0.4 Msun and age ~10Myr. Comparison with the predictions of numerical and analytical models shows excellent agreement between the isochronal age and lithium depletion time scale for two objects, the first case in lithium-poor pre-main sequence stars. Our results bear on the issue of the real age spread in the ONC and hence on the overall duration of the star formation process, indicating that the stellar population did not came into existence in a single, rapid burst.

arXiv commentAstrophysical Journal Letters, in press

References in corpus (13)

• Control of star formation by supersonic turbulence
• The Luminosity & Mass Function of the Trapezium Cluster: From B stars to the Deuterium Burning Limit
• An Assessment of Dynamical Mass Constraints on Pre-Main Sequence Evolutionary Tracks
• The Spectroscopically Determined Substellar Mass Function of the Orion Nebula Cluster
• Lithium and Halpha in stars and brown dwarfs of sigma Orionis
• Lithium Depletion in Fully Convective Pre-Main Sequence Stars
• Lithium Depletion in Pre-Mainsequence Solar-Like Stars
• The Lithium Depletion Boundary in NGC 2547 as a test of pre-main-sequence evolutionary models
• Membership, lithium, and metallicity in the young open clusters IC 2602 and IC 2391: enlarging the sample
• Ambipolar-Diffusion Timescale, Star-Formation Timescale, and the Ages of Molecular Clouds: Is There a Discrepancy?
• Chandra X-ray Observation of the Orion Nebula Cluster. I Detection, Identification and Determination of X-ray Luminosities
• Lithium Depletion Boundary in a Pre-Main Sequence Binary System
• A Long-Lived Accretion Disk Around a Lithium-Depleted Binary T Tauri Star

Cited by in corpus (61)

• The Ages of Stars
• A comprehensive set of simulations studying the influence of gas expulsion on star cluster evolution
• Equilibrium Star Cluster Formation
• Characterizing Young Brown Dwarfs using Low Resolution Near-IR Spectra
• Can we predict the global magnetic topology of a pre-main sequence star from its position in the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram?
• Search for associations containing young stars. III- Ages and Li abundances
• Fitting the young main-sequence; distances, ages and age spreads
• Quantitative Evidence for an Intrinsic Age Spread in the Orion Nebula Cluster
• Protostellar outflow-driven turbulence
• Recurrent gas accretion by massive star clusters, multiple stellar populations and mass thresholds for spherical stellar systems
• A Tale of Three Cities: OmegaCAM discovers multiple sequences in the color-magnitude diagram of the Orion Nebula Cluster
• Rapid Star Formation and Global Gravitational Collapse
• Infrared Spectroscopy and Analysis of Brown Dwarf and Planetary Mass Objects in the Orion Nebula Cluster
• The Gaia-ESO Survey: open clusters in Gaia-DR1 - a way forward to stellar age calibration
• The Gaia-ESO Survey: Lithium depletion in the Gamma Velorum cluster and inflated radii in low-mass pre-main-sequence stars
• The Gaia-ESO Survey: A lithium-rotation connection at 5 Myr?
• Early-A stars from IPHAS, and their distribution in and around the Cyg OB2 association
• A New Method for the Assessment of Age and Age-Spread of Pre-Main Sequence Stars in Young Stellar Associations of the Magellanic Clouds
• The Keele-Exeter young cluster survey: I. Low mass pre-main sequence stars in NGC 2169
• The Gaia-ESO Survey and CSI 2264: Substructures, disks, and sequential star formation in the young open cluster NGC 2264
• Spectroscopy of planetary mass brown dwarfs in Orion
• 51 Eri and GJ 3305: A 10-15 Myr old binary star system at 30 parsecs
• Metallicity of low-mass stars in Orion
• The Gaia-ESO Survey: Asymmetric expansion of the Lagoon Nebula cluster NGC 6530 from GES and Gaia DR2
• Modelling unresolved binaries of open clusters in color-magnitude diagram. I. method and application of NGC3532
• Do star clusters form in a completely mass-segregated way?
• Light Elements in the Universe
• Low mass young stars in the Milky Way unveiled by DBSCAN and Gaia EDR3. Mapping the star forming regions within 1.5 Kpc
• An assessment of Li abundances in weak-lined and classical T Tauri stars of the Taurus-Auriga association
• Lithium depleted stars in the young sigma Ori cluster
• The Gaia-ESO Survey: Structural and dynamical properties of the young cluster Chamaeleon I
• Captured older stars as the reason for apparently prolonged star formation in young star clusters
• The Turbulent Interstellar Medium
• New Young Brown Dwarfs in the Orion Molecular Cloud 2/3 Region
• Exploring pre-main sequence variables of ONC: The new variables
• Hunting for Runaways from the Orion Nebula Cluster
• The protoplanetary disks in the nearby massive star forming region Cygnus OB2
• VLT/Flames observations of the star forming region NGC 6530
• Gas and Dust Associated with the Strange, Isolated, Star BP Piscium
• Pre-main sequence stars with disks in the Eagle Nebula observed in scattered light
• The Spitzer Survey of Interstellar Clouds in the Gould Belt. IV. Lupus V and VI Observed with IRAC and MIPS
• X-shooter spectroscopy of young stellar objects in Lupus: Lithium, iron, and barium elemental abundances
• An optical spectroscopic H-R diagram for low-mass stars and brown dwarfs in Orion
• Cluster Formation in Contracting Molecular Clouds
• No evidence for intense, cold accretion onto YSOs from measurements of Li in T-Tauri stars
• A constraint on the formation timescale of the young open cluster NGC 2264: Lithium abundance of pre-main sequence stars
• Multiwavelength analysis of the young open cluster NGC 2362
• Sejong Open Cluster Survey (SOS) - IV. The Young Open Clusters NGC 1624 and NGC 1931
• Spectroscopic observations of blue stars with infrared excesses in NGC 6611
• The Stellar Population And Origin Of The Mysterious High-Latitude Star Forming Cloud CG 12
• Kinematics of the Optically Visible YSOs Toward the Orion B Molecular Cloud
• The Structure and 3D Kinematics of Vela OB2
• Rubin Observatory LSST Stars Milky Way and Local Volume Star Clusters Roadmap
• Pre-main sequence stars in open clusters. I. The DAY-I catalogue
• Young Stars near Cometary Globule CG 30 in the Tumultuous Gum Nebula
• Investigating the Upper Scorpius OB association with HERMES. I. The spectroscopic sample and 6D kinematics
• Are There Age Spreads in Star Forming Regions?
• Age-Related Observations of Low Mass Pre-Main and Young Main Sequence Stars (Invited Review)
• Probing accretion and stellar properties in the Orion Nebula with VLT/X-Shooter
• On the evolution of irradiated turbulent clouds: A comparative study between modes of triggered star-formation
• On the origin of complex stellar populations in star clusters