VLBA Determination of the Distance to Nearby Star-forming Regions. I. The Distance to T Tauri with 0.4% Accuracy

By L. Loinard, R. Torres, A. Mioduszewski, Luis F. Rodriguez, R. A. González-Lópezlira, R. Lachaume, V. Vázquez, E. González. 2007

141 citations recorded by the source corpus.

In this article, we present the results of a series of 12 3.6 cm radio continuum observations of T Tau Sb, one of the companions of the famous young stellar object T Tauri. The data were collected roughly every 2 months between 2003 September and 2005 July with the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA). Thanks to the remarkably accurate astrometry delivered by the VLBA, the absolute position of T Tau Sb could be measured with a precision typically better than about 100 μas at each of the 12 observed epochs. The trajectory of T Tau Sb on the plane of the sky could therefore be traced very precisely and was modeled as the superposition of the trigonometric parallax of the source and an accelerated proper motion. The best fit yields a distance to T Tau Sb of 147.6 ± 0.6 pc. The observed positions of T Tau Sb are in good agreement with recent infrared measurements, but they seem to favor a somewhat longer orbital period than that recently reported by Duchêne and coworkers for the T Tau Sa/T Tau Sb system.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/dd313f177d0f22955a99d7de6ada933fc59543b1

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. A. Kraus
2. K. Luhman
3. L. Hillenbrand
4. Michael J. Ireland
5. S. Andrews
6. D. Wilner
7. Eric Mamajek
8. G. Herczeg

In Instrumentation

1. A. Kraus
2. Michael J. Ireland
3. K. Luhman
4. L. Hillenbrand
5. S. Andrews
6. D. Wilner
7. T. Birnstiel
8. Eric Mamajek

Citations in the corpus

• Large-Scale Structure of the Molecular Gas in Taurus Revealed by High Linear Dynamic Range Spectral Line Mapping (2008, methodology): “However, we note that a recent astrometric measurement ot the star T Tau Sb yields a distance of 147.6 0.6 pc (Loinard et al. 2007), supporting the value of 140 pc used in this paper.”
• THE MASS DEPENDENCE BETWEEN PROTOPLANETARY DISKS AND THEIR STELLAR HOSTS (2013, result): “Historical spectroscopic parallax estimates have favored a mean distance of d ≈ 140 ± 20 pc to the association, in good agreement with a few precise, individual trigonometric parallaxes from VLBI measurements (Loinard et al. 2007; Torres et al. 2009, 2012).”
• THE FIRST ACCURATE PARALLAX DISTANCE TO A BLACK HOLE (2009, methodology): “…systematic errors estimated from Pradel et al. (2006) were added to the statistical errors in quadrature before using the singular value decomposition (SVD) method (as detailed in Loinard et al. 2007) to fit for a reference position and proper motion in R.A. and Dec., and for the source parallax.”
• The Bar and Spiral Structure Legacy (BeSSeL) Survey: Mapping the Milky Way with VLBI Astrometry† (2011, background): “Most radio stars are relatively weak, and the sensitivity of current instruments limits the detection to sources within a few hundred parsec (e.g. Loinard et al. 2007; Menten et al. 2007; Torres et al. 2007).”
• Fundamental Parameters of the Milky Way Galaxy Based on VLBI Astrometry (2012, unknown): “…(7) Hachisuka et al. 2009, (8) Hirota et al. 2008a, (9) Hirota et al. 2008b, (10) Hirota et al. 2011, (11) Honma et al. 2007, (12) Imai et al. 2007, (13) Kim et al. 2008, (14) Loinard et al. 2007, (15) Loinard et al. 2008, (16) Moellenbrock et al. 2009, (17) Moscadelli et al. 2009, (18)…”
• AN INFRARED/X-RAY SURVEY FOR NEW MEMBERS OF THE TAURUS STAR-FORMING REGION (2009, methodology): “…the extinctions with J-band photometry from the Point Source Catalog of the Two-Micron AllSky Survey (2MASS; Skrutskie et al. 2006), a distance of 140 pc (Wichmann et al. 1998; Loinard et al. 2005, 2007; Torres et al. 2007, 2009), and the bolometric corrections used by Luhman (2004a, 2007).”
• A millimeter Continuum Size–Luminosity Relationship for Protoplanetary Disks (2017, methodology): “We assign the same parallax for HP Tau that was measured for its wide companion, HP Tau/G2, using VLBI radio observations (Torres et al. 2009).”
• VLBA DETERMINATION OF THE DISTANCE TO NEARBY STAR-FORMING REGIONS. III. HP TAU/G2 AND THE THREE-DIMENSIONAL STRUCTURE OF TAURUS (2009, methodology): “Introduction Several recent observations (e.g. Loinard et al. 2005, 2007, 2008; Torres et al. 2007; Menten et al. 2007; Xu et al. 2006) have demonstrated that multi-epoch VLBI observations can be used to measure the trigonometric parallax of nearby young starsto better than a few percent.”
• AN OPTICAL SPECTROSCOPIC STUDY OF T TAURI STARS. I. PHOTOSPHERIC PROPERTIES (2014, background): “…120 pc for Ophiucus (Loinard et al. 2008), 131 pc for stars near the Lynds 1495 complex in Taurus (Torres et al. 2012), 147 pc for stars near T Tau (Loinard et al. 2007), 161 pc for the stars near the HP Tau complex in Taurus (Torres et al. 2009), 140 pc for all other Taurus objects, and 416 pc…”
• A Preliminary VLBA Distance to the Core of Ophiuchus, with an Accuracy of 4% (2008, methodology): “The astrometric parameters were determined using a least-square fit based on a Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) scheme (see Loinard et al. 2007 for details).”
• MAPPING THE SHORES OF THE BROWN DWARF DESERT. II. MULTIPLE STAR FORMATION IN TAURUS–AURIGA (2011, methodology): “We adopted a characteristic distance for all Taurus members of 145±15 pc. Recent high-precision parallax measurements with the VLBA (Loinard et al. 2007; Torres et al. 2007, 2009) and from binary orbit fitting (Boden et al. 2007) suggest that there might be a distance gradient of 165-125 pc in the e”
• VLBA Determination of the Distance to Nearby Star-forming Regions. II. Hubble 4 and HDE 283572 in Taurus (2007, methodology): “…such observations have proven capable of measuring the trigonometric parallax of sources within a few kiloparsecs of the Sun with a precision of a few percent (Brisken et al. 2000, 2002; Loinard et al. 2005, 2007; Xu et al. 2006; Hachisuka et al. 2006; Hirota et al. 2007; Sandstrom et al. 2007).”
• Microarcsecond Radio Astrometry (2013, background): “…§2) include a resolution of the Hipparcos Pleiades distance controversy (Melis et al. 2014), 3-dimensional “imaging” of nearby star forming regions (Loinard et al. 2007), and the most accurate measurements to date of the distance to the Galactic Center, R0, and the circular rotation speed of…”