Spitzer Observations of the Taurus Molecular Cloud: Old and New YSOs
First Author:
Luisa Rebull
Email: rebull AT ipac.caltech.edu
Spitzer Science Center, Caltech
MS 220-6
Pasadena, CA, 91125, USA
Coauthors:
Padgett, Deborah, SSC
McCabe, Caer, SSC
Hillenbrand, Lynne, Caltech
Noriega-Crespo, Alberto, SSC
Carey, Sean, SSC
Brooke, Tim, SSC
Huard, Tracy, Univ. of Maryland
Fukagawa, Misato, Nagoya University
Hines, Dean, SSI
Terebey, Susan, CSULA
Stapelfeldt, Karl, JPL
Guedel, Manuel, PSI
Audard, Marc, Geneva
Monin, Jean-Louis, Grenoble
Guieu, Sylvain, SSC
Knapp, Gillian, Princeton
Evans, Neal, UnivTexas
Grosso, Nicholas, Strasbourg
Briggs, Kevin, PSI
Palla, F., Florence
Wolff, Sidney, NOAO
Strom, Stephen, NOAO
Abstract
Taurus hosts a distributed mode of low-mass star formation that has proven particularly amenable to observational and theoretical study. In 2005-7, our team mapped the central 44 square degrees of the main Taurus cloud using the IRAC and MIPS cameras on the Spitzer Space Telescope. These images form the largest contiguous Spitzer map of a single star-forming region (and any region outside the galactic plane). The Spitzer survey is a central and crucial part of a multiwavelength study of the Taurus cloud complex that we have performed using XMM, CFHT, and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. The photometry data points from Spitzer allow us to characterize the circumstellar environment of each object. In conjunction with the rest of the surveys (in the regions where all surveys overlap), we can construct spectral energy distributions (in the best cases) from 0.212 to 160 microns for the known population. By comparison to the color distributions of the known Taurus members, we can look for new members among the rest of the detected objects. In this contribution, we will present early results for the full SEDs and colors of known members, and a first look at our new candidate members.
