A simple linear model to aid in analyses of the Beta Pictoris moving group

TL;DR

This paper develops a simple four-dimensional linear model using PCA to analyze object membership in the Beta Pictoris moving group, aiding in the classification of stellar members based on galactic velocities and Gaia data.

Contribution

The paper introduces a novel PCA-based linear model for efficiently analyzing and classifying members of the Beta Pictoris moving group using high-dimensional data.

Findings

The model effectively clusters bona fide and candidate members around a principal component.

Flagging outliers based on distances to PC 1' is consistent with data quality.

The approach can be extended to other young stellar groups.

Abstract

We build a four-dimensional linear model of object membership in the Beta Pictoris moving group (BPMG), using two nested applications of Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to high-quality data on about 1.5 million objects. These data contain the objects' galactic space velocities and also their Gaia $G$ magnitudes. Through PCA, they ultimately result in a four-dimensional straight line, referred to as PC $1'$, about which both the bona fide members used to obtain the straight line and the candidate members used to test the model congregate at generally small distances. Our bona fide members come from a recent, Gaia DR2-based compilation. Most candidate members are from a compilation from 2017. Using a standard procedure to flag groups of outliers in data sets, we argue that flagging the few possible outliers we identified on account of distances to PC $1'$ is consistent with the nature of the candidate members in use. The spatial and kinematic measurements that backed their inclusion in the 2017 compilation were of course from before the availability of data from the Gaia mission. Moreover, their radial velocities at the time were either unknown or estimated somewhat unreliably. We propose that PC $1'$ be added to the tool set for BPMG analyses and potentially extended to other young stellar moving groups.