Bibcode
Montes, D.; Martin, E. L.
Bibliographical reference
Astronomy and Astrophysics, v.318, p.805-811
Advertised on:
2
1997
Journal
Citations
43
Refereed citations
37
Description
As part of a long term effort to understand pre-main sequence Li
burning, we have obtained high resolution spectroscopic observations of
14 late type stars (G0-M1) in the young open cluster IC 4665. Most of
the stars have Hα filled-in and LiI absorption, as expected for
their young age. From the equivalent widths of Hα emission excess
(obtained using the spectral subtraction technique) and the
LiIλ6708 feature, we have derived Hα emission fluxes and
photospheric Li abundances. The mean Li abundance of IC 4665 solar-type
stars is log N(Li)=3.1; the same as in other young clusters (α
Per, Pleiades) and T Tauri stars. Our results support the conclusions
from previous works that PMS Li depletion is very small for masses
~1Msun_ . Among the IC 4665 late-G and early K-type stars,
there is a spread in Li abundances of about one order of magnitude. The
Li-poor IC 4665 members have low Hα excess and vsini<=10.
Hence, the Li-activity-rotation connection which has been clearly
established in the Pleiades also seems to hold in IC 4665. One M-type IC
4665 star that we have observed does not show Li, implying a very
efficient Li depletion as observed in α Per stars of the same
spectral type. The level of chromospheric activity and Li depletion
among the low-mass stars of IC 4665 is similar to that in the Pleiades.
In fact, we note that the Li abundance distributions in several young
clusters (α Per, Pleiades, IC 2391, IC 4665) and in post T Tauri
stars are strikingly similar. This result suggests that Hα
emission and Li abundance not well correlated with age for low-mass
stars between 20 and 100 Myr old. We argue that a finer age indicator,
the ``LL-clock", would be the luminosity at which the transition between
efficient Li depletion and preservation takes place for fully convective
objects. The LL-clock could allow in the near future to derive the
relative ages of young open clusters, and clarify the study of PMS
evolution of cool stars.