# A disk census for the nearest group of young stars: Mid-infrared observations of the TW Hydrae Association

## 1 Introduction

Circumstellar disks appear to be a natural consequence of the star formation process. Observations of young pre-main-sequence (PMS) stars show that many of them are surrounded by optically thick disks of solar system dimension with masses comparable to or greater than the “minimum-mass solar nebula” of 0.01 $`M_{}`$ (see Beckwith 1999 for a review). Infrared emission in excess of stellar photospheric fluxes provides the most readily measurable signature of such disks. Excesses at $`\lambda `$ 10 $`\mu `$m are found in $``$50% of the low-mass stars in star-forming regions (Strom et al. 1993).

It has been suggested that circumstellar disks evolve from optically thick to optically thin structures in about 10 Myr (Strom et al. 1993). That transition may mark the assembly of grains into planetesimals, or clearing of the disk by planets. Indeed, low-mass debris disks have now been imaged around several main sequence stars with ages ranging from 10 Myr to 1 Gyr (Jayawardhana et al. 1998; Holland et al. 1998; Greaves et al. 1998; Koerner et al. 1998; Trilling & Brown 1998). However, age estimates for early-type isolated main sequence stars are highly uncertain. Therefore, the timescale for disk evolution and planet formation is still poorly constrained, and may depend critically on the presence or absence of a close binary companion.

The recent discovery of a group of young stars associated with TW Hydrae offers a unique laboratory to study disk evolution and planet formation. TW Hya itself was first identified as an “isolated” T Tauri star by Rucinski & Krautter (1983). Subsequent searches by de la Reza et al. (1989) and Gregorio-Hetem et al. (1992) found four other young stars in the vicinity of TW Hya and suggested that the stars may be kinematically associated. On the basis of strong X-ray emission from all five systems, Kastner et al. (1997) concluded that the group forms a physical association at a distance of $``$50 pc with an age of 20$`\pm `$10 Myr. (See Jensen, Cohen, & Neuhäuser 1998 for a different point of view.) Webb et al. (1999) have identified five more T Tauri star systems in the same region of the sky as candidate members of the “TW Hya Association” (TWA), based on the same signatures of youth –namely high X-ray flux, large Li abundance, and strong chromospheric activity– and the same proper motion as the original five members. Furthermore, they suggest that the wide binary HR 4796, which contains an A0V star, is also part of the Association, even though its Hipparcos parallactic distance of 67 pc places it further away than most other members of the group. The three other TWA stars with Hipparcos distances –TW Hya, HD 98800, and TWA 9– are at 56, 47 and 50 pc, respectively.

Being the nearest group of young stars, the TW Hya Association is ideally suited for sensitive disk searches in the mid-infrared. Furthermore, its estimated age of $``$10 Myr provides a strong constraint on disk evolution timescales and fills a significant gap in the age sequence between $``$1-Myr-old T Tauri stars in molecular clouds like Taurus-Auriga and Chamaeleon and the $``$50-Myr-old open clusters such as IC 2602 and IC 2391.

Over the past two years, we have conducted mid-infrared observations of the candidate TWA stars. Our discovery of a spatially-resolved disk around HR 4796A and our high-resolution observations of the close binary Hen 3-600 have already been reported (Jayawardhana et al. 1998, 1999). Here we present observations of the other members of the group, including the discovery of a possible 10$`\mu `$m excess in CD -337795, and discuss implications for the origin and age of the TW Hya Association as well as for disk evolution timescales.

## 2 Observations

During three observing runs in 1998 and 1999, we have obtained mid-infrared images of candidate members of the TW Hya Association using the OSCIR instrument on the 4-meter Blanco telescope at Cerro Tololo Interamerican Observatory (CTIO) and the 10-meter Keck II telescope. The log of our observations is given in Table 1. OSCIR is a mid-infrared imager/spectrometer built at the University of Florida, using a 128$`\times `$128 Si:As Blocked Impurity Band (BIB) detector developed by Boeing. Additional information on OSCIR is available on the Internet at www.astro.ufl.edu/iag/.

On the CTIO 4-m telescope, OSCIR has a plate scale of 0.183”/pixel, which gives a field of view of 23”$`\times `$23”. Our observations were made using the standard chop/nod technique with a chop frequency of 5 Hz and a throw of 23” in declination. On Keck II, its plate scale is 0.062”/pixel, providing a 7.9”$`\times `$7.9” field of view. Here we used a chop frequency of 4 Hz and a throw of 8”. Images were obtained in the N(10.8 $`\mu `$m) band for the entire sample, and in the IHW18(18.2 $`\mu `$m) band for a few bright targets.

## 3 Results

In Table 2, we present the measured 10$`\mu `$m fluxes for the entire sample, and compare them to the expected photospheric fluxes, assuming K - N=0 for all late-type stars; For HR 4796A, we used K - N=-0.03, as given by Kenyon & Hartmann (1995) for an A0V star.

Among the candidate TWA stars, only TW Hya, HD 98800, Hen 3-600A and HR 4796A – all of which were first detected by IRAS – show significant excess at mid-infrared wavelengths. We have detected a modest 10$`\mu `$m excess in CD -337795 for the first time (see below). None of the other late-type stars have excess, suggesting that they do not harbor dusty inner disks.

Comments on individual objects

TW Hydrae The spectral energy distribution (SED) of TW Hya from near- to far-infrared wavelengths, including our flux measurements at 10.8$`\mu `$m and 18.2$`\mu `$m, is shown in Figure 1a. The excess at $`\lambda `$ 20$`\mu `$m is unusually strong compared to the median of classical T Tauri stars in Taurus (solid line in Figure 1a). It is worth noting that TW Hya also has a large H$`\alpha `$ equivalent width of -220Å, consistent with an actively accreting disk.

CD -337795 We measure a 10$`\mu `$m flux of 96$`\pm `$9 mJy for CD -337795, somewhat above its estimated photospheric emission of 70$`\pm `$5 mJy. This modest excess, at a level of 2.6$`\sigma `$, is well below what is expected for an optically thick inner disk (Figure 1b). One possibility is that our assumption K - N=0 is not correct; if K - N$``$0.3, there would be no 10$`\mu `$m excess. However, we note that using K - N=0 gives good agreement with measured fluxes for other stars of similar spectral type in the sample.

If the excess is real, it could be due to an optically thin disk or a faint, as yet undetected stellar companion. We note that CD -337795 may be a spectroscopic binary according to Webb et al. (1999). Furthermore, Lowrance et al. (1999) have reported the discovery of a possible brown dwarf companion 2”, or $``$100 AU, from CD -337795. Our 10$`\mu `$m flux measurement is within an aperture of 1” radius (seeing$``$0.7”), and thus should not include a contribution from this brown dwarf. In any case, to account for the observed 10$`\mu `$m excess, the brown dwarf ($`K=11.5`$) would have to have K - N=3.6!

HR 4796B We placed an upper limit of 23 mJy to the 10$`\mu `$m emission from HR 4796B from CTIO data and have now detected its photosphere at 16$`\pm `$2 mJy at Keck. This result is of particular interest because the age of HR 4796B is fairly well established. Using the Hipparcos distance of 67 pc to HR 4796A and D’Antona and Mazzitelli (1994) evolutionary tracks, it is possible to estimate an age of $`8\pm 3`$ Myr for B which is an M2.5 star (Jayawardhana et al. 1998). This age is consistent with the upper bound provided by the measurement of the strong Li absorption line at 6708 Å (Stauffer et al. 1995). The lack of 10$`\mu `$m excess in this object suggests that HR 4796B does not have a dusty inner disk. Unfortunately, we cannot determine at present whether it originally had an optically thick disk, which has since depleted, or whether it formed without a disk (like some 50% of T Tauri stars appear to be). If future far-infrared and sub-millimeter observations find evidence for an outer disk around HR 4796B, that would argue for rapid evolution of the inner disk, either through coagulation of dust or accretion on to the central star.

## 4 Discussion

### 4.1 Origin and age of the TW Hya Association

Whether the TWA stars are physically related in origin is a matter of controversy. Kastner et al. (1997) and Webb et al. (1999) argue that this is an unusual grouping of relatively young (10 Myr old) stars unlikely to be a chance coincidence, while Jensen et al. (1998) argue that the proper motions of three primary members – TW Hya, HD 98800, and CD -367429 – are inconsistent with them having formed together 10 Myr ago. Confusing the issue further, TW Hya has all the characteristics of an actively accreting T Tauri star (Rucinski & Krautter 1983; de la Reza et al. 1989; Gregorio-Hetem et al. 1992), typical of much younger systems (ages $`<`$ 3 Myr), while most of the other members show weak or no H$`\alpha `$ emission (Kastner et al. 1997; Webb et al. 1999), and, as we have shown here, little or no infrared excess emission from dusty disks.

Our data do not bear directly on the question of the physical connection between the stars in this association, but a few comments can be made about membership determinations. The first question to be addressed is whether the TWA members really constitute a special and unlikely concentration of objects. Webb et al. (1999) argue for this conclusion, based on three points: first, essentially that there are few or no classical T Tauri stars known outside of clouds; second, that X-ray surveys do not show similar numbers of 10 Myr old stars; and third, that there is no evidence for 10-100 Myr old populations in the solar neighborhood. The first argument is not very strong because there is only one bona fide Classical T Tauri star in the TW Hya group and so statistics are poor. The third argument appears to be inconsistent with the results of Briceño et al. (1997), who showed that many of the X-ray bright low-mass stars in the ROSAT All Sky Survey (RASS) have ages of 50-100 Myr. The second argument also has problems; as Martín & Magazzù (1999) showed from a study of Li equivalent widths in RASS-selected stars in the direction of Taurus, while most of the systems are likely to be 50-100 Myr old, a modest fraction ($`20`$%) of these objects may indeed be $`10`$ Myr old.

Another way to address the question of the overdensity is to use estimates of the expected average birthrate in the solar neighborhood. Using the results of Miller & Scalo (1979) for a constant birthrate and the age parameter $`T_o=12\times 10^9`$ yr, and their form for the initial mass function, we predict that the number of stars formed per year between $`0.8M_{\mathrm{}}`$ and $`0.3M_{\mathrm{}}`$ in the solar neighborhood is $`2.1\times 10^9`$ stars yr<sup>-1</sup> pc<sup>-2</sup>. Thus, within a radius of 75 pc from the Sun, there should be approximately 370 stars with ages $`10`$ Myr. If these stars were distributed uniformly across the sky within a band of $`\pm 45^{}`$ from the galactic equator (i.e., an effective scale height of approximately 70 pc), the surface density of such objects would then be $`1.3\times 10^2`$ stars per square degree. The main body of the TW Hya Association identified by Webb et al. (1999) spans a range of 13 degress in declination by about 19 degrees in right ascension. Thus in these 245 square degrees one should expect on average 3.1 stars in the 1-10 Myr age range, whereas Webb et al. identify 11 such objects. If one includes HR 4796 and TWA 10, as suggested by Webb et al., the total number of observed objects increases to 14 but the number of predicted randomly-distributed objects in the larger 17 degree by 28 degree region also goes up to 6.

Thus, while the above calculations suggest that the TW Hya Association is probably a significant enhancement in the local density of young stars, the possibility that this is a chance alignment cannot be completely ruled out. The predicted average density depends upon parameter choices that are not certain, such as the precise volume that is being sampled and the actual ages of the stars (changes of a factor of two in these properties strongly affect the apparent significance of the grouping). While it is probably not appropriate to use an averaged birthrate for such young stars, note that for typical space velocities of $`5\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ (Hoff et al. 1998), groups of age 10-20 Myr can overlap if they originated 50-100 pc apart.

Regardless of the physical association of these objects (which really only is used to support the application of the Hipparcos distances of the main objects to all suggested members), the lack of Li depletion indicates that these stars cannot be much older than $``$10 Myr. Whatever molecular cloud(s) these stars formed in, the absence of relatively nearby molecular gas is most easily explained if the natal clouds disperse in $`10`$ Myr (Hoff et al. 1998), consistent with the general absence of 3-10 Myr old stars in molecular clouds such as Taurus-Auriga (e.g., Briceño et al. 1997), rather than by requiring very high space velocities to move stars from present-day clouds (Soderblom et al. 1998).

### 4.2 Implications for disk evolution timescales

Our mid-infrared observations show that many of the stars in the TW Hya Association have little or no disk emission at 10$`\mu `$m. Even among the five stellar systems with 10$`\mu `$m excesses, most show some evidence of inner disk evolution. The disk around the A0 star HR 4796A has an $`r60`$ AU central hole in mid-infrared images (Jayawardhana et al. 1998; Koerner et al. 1998). The SEDs of HD 98800 and Hen 3-600A also suggest possible inner disk holes (Jayawardhana et al. 1999). The excess we report here for CD -337795 is modest, and could well be due to a faint companion. Only TW Hya appears to harbor an optically thick, actively accreting disk of the kind observed in $``$1-Myr-old classical T Tauri stars; it is the only one with a large H$`\alpha `$ equivalent width (-220 Å). It would be of great interest to further constrain TW Hya’s SED with flux measurements at wavelengths between 2-10 $`\mu `$m.

If most TWA stars are $``$10 Myr old, the above results suggest that their inner disks have already depleted either through coagulation of dust or accretion on to the central star. The fact that only one (TW Hya) out of 16 entries in Table 2 shows classical T Tauri characteristics –compared to $``$50% of $``$1-Myr-old stars in star-forming regions– argues for rapid evolution of inner disks in pre-main-sequence stars. Observations at far-infrared and sub-millimeter wavelengths may reveal whether most TWA stars still retain their outer disks. These stars are also ideal targets for sensitive brown dwarf and planet searches with the Space Interferometry Mission (SIM) and the proposed Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF).

We wish to thank the staff of CTIO and Keck Observatory for their outstanding support. The research at CfA was supported by NASA grant NAG5-4282 and the Smithsonian Institution. The research at the University of Florida was supported by NASA, NSF, and the University of Florida.

Figure Caption

Figure 1. Composite spectral energy distribution (SED) of (a) TW Hydrae and (b) CD -337795. The solid line in each plot is the median SED for Taurus CTTS, normalized at H (from D’Alessio et al. 1999), and the dashed lines show the quartile fluxes to provide some idea of the range of observed CTTS fluxes.