PRE-MAIN-SEQUENCE STARS IN THE CEPHEUS FLARE REGION

Abstract

We present results of optical spectroscopic and BV R(C)I(C) photometric observations of 77 pre-main-sequence (PMS) stars in the Cepheus flare region. A total of 64 of these are newly confirmed PMS stars, originally selected from various published candidate lists. We estimate effective temperatures and luminosities for the PMS stars, and comparing the results with PMS evolutionary models, we estimate stellar masses of 0.2-2.4 M(circle dot) and stellar ages of 0.1-15 Myr. Among the PMS stars, we identify 15 visual binaries with separations of 2-10 arcsec. From archival IRAS, Two Micron All Sky Survey, and Spitzer data, we construct their spectral energy distributions (SEDs) and classify 5% of the stars as Class I, 10% as Flat SED, 60% as Class II, and 3% as Class III young stellar objects. We identify 12 classical T Tauri stars and two weak-line T Tauri stars as members of NGC 7023, with a mean age of 1.6 Myr. The 13 PMS stars associated with L1228 belong to three small aggregates: RNO 129, L1228A, and L1228S. The age distribution of the 17 PMS stars associated with L1251 suggests that star formation has propagated with the expansion of the Cepheus flare shell. We detect sparse aggregates of similar to 6-7 Myr old PMS stars around the dark clouds L1177 and L1219, at a distance of similar to 400 pc. Three T Tauri stars appear to be associated with the Herbig Ae star SV Cep at a distance of 600 pc. Our results confirm that the molecular complex in the Cepheus flare region contains clouds of various distances and star-forming histories.