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The Velocity Distribution of Nearby Stars from Hipparcos Data. I. The Significance of the Moving Groups
We present a three-dimensional reconstruction of the velocitydistribution of nearby stars (lsim100 pc) using a maximum likelihooddensity estimation technique applied to the two-dimensional tangentialvelocities of stars. The underlying distribution is modeled as a mixtureof Gaussian components. The algorithm reconstructs the error-deconvolveddistribution function, even when the individual stars have unique errorand missing-data properties. We apply this technique to the tangentialvelocity measurements from a kinematically unbiased sample of 11,865main-sequence stars observed by the Hipparcos satellite. We explorevarious methods for validating the complexity of the resulting velocitydistribution function, including criteria based on Bayesian modelselection and how accurately our reconstruction predicts the radialvelocities of a sample of stars from the Geneva-Copenhagen Survey (GCS).Using this very conservative external validation test based on the GCS,we find that there is little evidence for structure in the distributionfunction beyond the moving groups established prior to the Hipparcosmission. This is in sharp contrast with internal tests performed hereand in previous analyses, which point consistently to maximal structurein the velocity distribution. We quantify the information content of theradial velocity measurements and find that the mean amount of newinformation gained from a radial velocity measurement of a single staris significant. This argues for complementary radial velocity surveys toupcoming astrometric surveys.
| Improved Astrometry and Photometry for the Luyten Catalog. II. Faint Stars and the Revised Catalog
We complete construction of a catalog containing improved astrometry andnew optical/infrared photometry for the vast majority of NLTT starslying in the overlap of regions covered by POSS I and by the secondincremental Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) release, approximately 44%of the sky. The epoch 2000 positions are typically accurate to 130 mas,the proper motions to 5.5 mas yr-1, and the V-J colors to0.25 mag. Relative proper motions of binary components are measured to 3mas yr-1. The false-identification rate is ~1% for11<~V<~18 and substantially less at brighter magnitudes. Theseimprovements permit the construction of a reduced proper-motion diagramthat, for the first time, allows one to classify NLTT stars intomain-sequence (MS) stars, subdwarfs (SDs), and white dwarfs (WDs). We inturn use this diagram to analyze the properties of both our catalog andthe NLTT catalog on which it is based. In sharp contrast to popularbelief, we find that NLTT incompleteness in the plane is almostcompletely concentrated in MS stars, and that SDs and WDs are detectedalmost uniformly over the sky δ>-33deg. Our catalogwill therefore provide a powerful tool to probe these populationsstatistically, as well as to reliably identify individual SDs and WDs.
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Observation and Astrometry data
| Constellation: | Τουκάνα |
| Right ascension: | 22h32m40.57s |
| Declination: | -65°26'09.4" |
| Apparent magnitude: | 9.053 |
| Proper motion RA: | -98.4 |
| Proper motion Dec: | -239.5 |
| B-T magnitude: | 9.891 |
| V-T magnitude: | 9.123 |
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