PMS members of upper Scorpius OB association

Utilizing the 2dF multiobject spectrograph at the Anglo-Australian Telescope, we obtained spectra of 576 stars with magnitudes 12.5<=R<=16.5 in a 6{deg}^2^ area in Upper Scorpius. Among these objects we were able to identify 98 new PMS stars, nearly all of them M-type stars, by their strong lithium absorption lines.

We place the new PMS stars into the H-R diagram and find that their ages agree well with the mean age of 5Myr determined in our earlier investigation based on a smaller sample of stars. The number of low-mass (0.1M_{sun}_<~M*<~0.5M_{sun}) members is at least as high as expected from the known number of high-mass (M*>~3M_{sun}_) association members and from recent determinations of the field star initial mass function. Thus, there is no deficit of low-mass stars in Upper Scorpius.