Early-type stars in Taurus-Auriga

We investigate several sets of possible O, B, and early A spectral class members. The first is a group of stars for which mid-infrared images show bright nebulae, all of which can be associated with stars of spectral-type B. The second group consists of early-type stars compiled from (1) literature listings in SIMBAD, (2) B stars with infrared excesses selected from the Spitzer Space Telescope survey of the Taurus cloud (Rebull et al. 2010, J/ApJS/186/259), (3) magnitude- and color-selected point sources from the Two Micron All Sky Survey (Skrutskie et al. 2006, VII/233), and (4) spectroscopically identified early-type stars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey coverage of the Taurus region (Finkbeiner et al. 2004AJ....128.2577F; Knapp et al. 2007AAS...211.2907K).

We evaluated stars for membership in the Taurus-Auriga star formation region based on criteria involving: spectroscopic and parallactic distances, proper motions and radial velocities, and infrared excesses or line emission indicative of stellar youth. For selected objects, we also model the scattered and emitted radiation from reflection nebulosity and compare the results with the observed spectral energy distributions to further test the plausibility of physical association of the B stars with the Taurus cloud.