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C. Briceño, A.K. Vivas (Yale University), N. Calvet, L.W. Hartmann (CfA), QUEST Collaboration
Crucial aspects of current theories on star formation can only be tested by studying the stellar populations in relatively young regions. While the earliest stages of stellar evolution must be probed in embedded regions with IR and radio techniques, only optical studies of unobscured OB associations can provide a clearer picture of the end products of star formation, allowing us to investigate issues such as lifetimes of molecular clouds, dispersal of young stars, disk evolution and the time scale for planet formation. We are using an 8k \times 8k CCD Mosaic Camera on the 1m Schmidt telescope at Venezuela to carry out an unprecedented multiband, multiepoch survey of the entire Orion OB1 association (~120 sq.deg.) to V\alt 20, in order to obtain a comprehensive census of the low mass young stellar population (down to ~0.2\> M\odot) and address the above issues.
We present initial results for an area roughly 35 sq.deg. spanning part of Ori 1a, Ori 1b and the Orion B cloud, in which we have obtained BVRI data at 20 epochs spanning over 2 months. Followup spectroscopy of a selected subsample is presented. We show the effectiveness of variability for selecting highly pure samples of candidate young stars with a very low contamination from field stars.
(Research reported herein based on observations made at Observatorio Nacional de Llano del Hato, Mérida, Venezuela, operated by the Centro de Investigaciones de Astronom{\'i}a [CIDA] and supported by the Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cient{\'i}ficas y Tecnológicas [CONICIT]).
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The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: briceno@hepmail.physics.yale.edu