OB associations and their origins

Wright

doi:10.1016/j.newar.2020.101549

OB associations and their origins

Wright

Authors

Nicholas Wright n.j.wright@keele.ac.uk

Abstract

OB associations are unbound groups of young stars made prominent by their bright OB members, and have long been thought to be the expanded remnants of dense star clusters. They have been important in astrophysics for over a century thanks to their luminous massive stars, though their low-mass members have not been well studied until the last couple of decades. This has changed thanks to data from X-ray observations, spectroscopic surveys and astrometry from Gaia that allows their full stellar content to be identified and their dynamics to be studied, which in turn is leading to changes in our understanding of these systems and their origins, with the old picture of Blaauw (1964) now being superseded. It is clear now that OB associations have considerably more substructure than once envisioned, both spatially, kinematically and temporally. These changes have implications for the star formation process, the formation and evolution of planetary systems, and the build-up of stellar populations across galaxies.

Acceptance Date	Sep 17, 2020
Publication Date	Nov 3, 2020
Journal	New Astronomy Reviews
Print ISSN	1387-6473
Publisher	Elsevier
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.newar.2020.101549
Keywords	OB Associations; Star clusters; Young stars; Star formation; Stellar kinematics and dynamics
Publisher URL	https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1387647320300269