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Published September 2009 | Published
Journal Article Open

The Distance to NGC 2264

Abstract

We determine the distance to the open cluster NGC 2264 using a statistical analysis of cluster member inclinations. We derive distance-dependent values of sin i (where i is the inclination angle) for 97 stars in NGC 2264 from the rotation periods, luminosities, effective temperatures, and projected equatorial rotation velocities, v sin i, measured for these stars. We have measured 96 of the vsin i values in our sample by analyzing high-resolution spectra with a cross-correlation technique. We model the observed distribution of sin i for the cluster by assuming that member stars have random axial orientations and by adopting prescriptions for the measurement errors in our sample. By adjusting the distance assumed in the observed sin i distribution until it matches the modeled distribution, we obtain a best-fit distance for the cluster. We find the data to be consistent with a distance to NGC 2264 of 913 pc. Quantitative tests of our analysis reveal uncertainties of 40 and 110 pc due to sampling and systematic effects, respectively. This distance estimate suggests a revised age for the cluster of ~1.5 Myr, although more detailed investigations of the full cluster membership are required to draw strong conclusions.

Additional Information

© 2009. The American Astronomical Society. Received 2008 September 26; accepted 2009 July 1; published 2009 August 14. The authors thank Steve Strom for a prompt and helpful referee report that improved the analysis presented here, and Russel White and Javed Gabor for providing IDL code that formed the basis of our cross-correlation pipeline. E.J.B. acknowledges the support of the SAO Summer Intern Program, made possible by a grant from the NSF. NASA support was provided to K.R.C. for this work through the Spitzer Space Telescope Fellowship Program, through a contract issued by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology under a contract with NASA. A.A.M. was supported by NASA through contract 1335523 issued by JPL/Caltech.

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August 21, 2023
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