The 3D Kinematics of the Orion Nebula Cluster. II. Mass-dependent Kinematics of the Inner Cluster

Abstract

We present the kinematic analysis of 246 stars within $4^{\prime} $ from the center of Orion Nebula Cluster (ONC), the closest massive star cluster with active star formation across the full mass range, which provides valuable insights in the formation and evolution of star cluster on an individual-star basis. High-precision radial velocities and surface temperatures are retrieved from spectra acquired by the NIRSPEC instrument used with adaptive optics (NIRSPAO) on the Keck II 10 m telescope. A 3D kinematic map is then constructed by combining with the proper motions previously measured by the Hubble Space Telescope Advanced Camera for Surveys/WFPC2/WFC3IR and Keck II NIRC2. The measured root-mean-squared velocity dispersion is 2.26 ± 0.08 km s ^−1 , significantly higher than the virial equilibrium’s requirement of 1.73 km s ^−1 , suggesting that the ONC core is supervirial, consistent with previous findings. Energy equipartition is not detected in the cluster. Most notably, the velocity of each star relative to its neighbors is found to be negatively correlated with stellar mass. Low-mass stars moving faster than their surrounding stars in a supervirial cluster suggests that the initial masses of forming stars may be related to their initial kinematic states. Additionally, a clockwise rotation preference is detected. A weak sign of inverse mass segregation is also identified among stars excluding the Trapezium stars, although it could be a sample bias. Finally, this study reports the discovery of four new candidate spectroscopic binary systems.

Keywords

• Star formation
• Stellar kinematics
• Star forming regions
• Star clusters
• Radial velocity
• Initial mass function