Identification of additional young nearby runaway stars based on Gaia data release 2 observations and the lithium test

Abstract

AbstractRunaway stars are characterized by their remarkably high space velocities, and the study of their formation mechanisms has attracted considerable interest. Young, nearby runaway stars are the most favorable for identifying their place of origin, and for searching for possible associated objects such as neutron stars. Usually, the research field of runaway stars focuses on O‐ and B‐type stars, because these objects are better detectable at larger distances than late‐type stars. Early‐type runaway stars have the advantage that they evolve faster and can therefore better be confirmed to be young. In contrast to this, the catalog of Young runaway stars within 3 kpc by Tetzlaff, N., Neuhäuser, R., & Hohle, M. M. (2011, MNRAS, 410(1), 190–200) contains also stars of spectral type A and later. The objects in this catalog were originally classified as young ( Myr) runaway stars by using Hipparcos data to estimate the ages from their location in the Hertzsprung‐Russell diagram and evolutionary models. In this article, we redetermine and/or constrain their ages not only by using the more precise second data release of the Gaia mission, but also by measuring the equivalent width of the lithium (6,708 Å) line, which is a youth indicator. Therefore, we searched for lithium absorption in the spectra of 51 target stars, taken at the University Observatory Jena between March and September 2020 with the Échelle spectrograph FLECHAS, and within additional TRES‐spectra from the Fred L. Whipple Observatory. The main part of this campaign with its 308 reduced spectra, accessible at VizieR, was already published. In this work, which is the continuation and completion of the in 2015 initiated observing campaign, we found three additional young runaway star candidates.