Proper motions of faint ROSAT WTT stars

Proper motions of the fainter stars were newly derived utilizing survey Schmidt plates from the GSC~II plate archive and from a set of special plates taken with the ESO Schmidt telescope. The vector point diagram (VPD) indicates that the certified weak emission-line T Tauri (WTT) stars cluster away from the region occupied by the brighter pre-main-sequence stars (PMS) in Cha I. The distance to this new association is estimated at ~100pc, sensibly smaller than the 150pc generally assumed for the SFR.

This yields an upper limit of 2km/s for the velocity dispersion of this new kinematic group. The de-reddened CM diagram of the group members suggest the WTT stars are still PMS objects, but older (3-30Myr) and less massive than previous determinations. These revised age estimates, the newly derived group peculiar velocity, and current distance estimates to the Cha~I/II/III complex would favour in-situ formation against that predicted by high velocity cloud models.