The APOGEE-2 Survey of the Orion Star Forming Complex: I. Target Selection and Validation with early observations

TL;DR

This paper details the selection and validation of young stellar objects in the Orion Star Forming Complex for the APOGEE-2 survey, using wide-field photometry and early spectroscopic data to create a robust, unbiased sample for studying stellar populations.

Contribution

It introduces a new, less biased target selection method for YSOs across Orion, validated with early observations, enabling comprehensive population analysis.

Findings

Approximately 90% of targets have velocities consistent with Orion membership.

The sample includes over 1100 bona fide YSOs with a uniform selection function.

The survey provides a robust dataset for comparative analysis of Orion's stellar populations.

Abstract

The Orion Star Forming Complex (OSFC) is a central target for the APOGEE-2 Young Cluster Survey. Existing membership catalogs span limited portions of the OSFC, reflecting the difficulty of selecting targets homogeneously across this extended, highly structured region. We have used data from wide field photometric surveys to produce a less biased parent sample of young stellar objects (YSOs) with infrared (IR) excesses indicative of warm circumstellar material or photometric variability at optical wavelengths across the full 420 square degrees extent of the OSFC. When restricted to YSO candidates with H < 12.4, to ensure S/N ~100 for a six visit source, this uniformly selected sample includes 1307 IR excess sources selected using criteria vetted by Koenig & Liesawitz and 990 optical variables identified in the Pan-STARRS1 3$\pi$ survey: 319 sources exhibit both optical variability and evidence of circumstellar disks through IR excess. Objects from this uniformly selected sample received the highest priority for targeting, but required fewer than half of the fibers on each APOGEE-2 plate. We fill the remaining fibers with previously confirmed and new color-magnitude selected candidate OSFC members. Radial velocity measurements from APOGEE-1 and new APOGEE-2 observations taken in the survey's first year indicate that ~90% of the uniformly selected targets have radial velocities consistent with Orion membership.The APOGEE-2 Orion survey will include >1100 bona fide YSOs whose uniform selection function will provide a robust sample for comparative analyses of the stellar populations and properties across all sub-regions of Orion.