Spectroscopic Observations of the Galex Nearby Young Star Survey Sample. 1. Nearby Moving Group Candidates

TL;DR

This study confirms the youth and group membership of 132 nearby stars, many newly identified, using spectroscopy, Gaia data, and kinematic analysis, providing valuable targets for future exoplanet and stellar evolution research.

Contribution

It presents the first large-scale spectroscopic validation of young star candidates and their group memberships within 120 parsecs, expanding the known nearby young stellar population.

Findings

Identified 132 candidate young stars in nearby moving groups.

Approximately half of the candidates are newly identified.

One-third are binaries or have binary companions.

Abstract

The GALEX Nearby Young Star Search (GALNYSS) yielded the identification of more than 2000 late-type stars that, based on their ultraviolet and infrared colors and pre-Gaia proper motions, are potentially of age < 200 Myr and lie within ~120 pc of Earth. We present the results of a campaign of medium- and high-resolution optical spectroscopy of 471 GALNYSS stars aimed at confirming their youth and their potential membership in nearby young stellar moving groups. We present radial velocity (RV), Li absorption, and H-$\alpha$ emission measurements for these spectroscopically observed GALNYSS stars, and assess their Li absorption and optical emission-line properties and infrared excesses. Our RV measurements are combined with literature and Gaia DR3 RV measurements and Gaia DR3 astrometry and photometry to obtain the spatiokinematics and color-magnitude positions of GALNYSS stars. We use these results to assess membership in the TW Hya, Tuc-Hor, Carina, Columba, and Argus Associations and the $\beta$-PMG and AB Dor moving groups. We have identified 132 stars as candidate members of these seven groups; roughly half of these candidates are newly identified on the basis of data presented here. At least one-third of the 132 candidates are spectroscopic and/or photometric binaries and/or have comoving (visual) binary companions in Gaia DR3. The contingent of young, low-mass stars in the solar vicinity we identify here should provide excellent subjects for future direct imaging exoplanet surveys and studies of the early evolution of low-mass stars and their planetary progeny.