SPYGLASS Survey Work
My research in the SPYGLASS program (Stars with Photometrically Young Gaia Luminosities Around the Solar System) is anchored by surveys of young stellar populations. In these surveys, I use a Bayesian framework to identify reliably young stars in the solar neighbourhood, and use a clustering algorithm to identify coherent, co-moving and co-spatial groupings within that young sample. These surveys provide a large-scale view of nearby star formation, discovering new associations, building a robust sample that can be used to study star formation on a wide range of scales, and building datasets for analyzing individual associations. My most recent survey publication contains the smallest young associations ever discovered, including 10 entirely new populations, and 20 with no direct literature equivalent. These surveys serve as the basis for my regional studies of local star formation patterns, which you can read more about HERE.
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SPYGLASS-I: Initial Survey
SPYGLASS-I is the flagship paper of the SPYGLASS series, developing the Bayesian framework for identifying young populations that would be relied on for later work, and performing the first search for nearby young stellar populations, focussed on the nearest 333 pc. The figure below displays the full sample of young associations we identified, shown in X vs Y galactic cartesian coordinates, which is a top-down view on the galactic plane centered on the sun. As part of this project, we also produced detailed overviews of all substructured young associations in the sample, identifying age gradients in Sco-Cen that would later be expanded on by Ratzenbock et al. 2023 (see the figure below the overview plot), and characterizing older populations in Orion and Perseus OB2.
My SPYGLASS-IV publication expanded the survey of young stellar populations to 1 kpc, revealing 116 young associations, 10 of which are completely new, and an additional 20 of which differ substantially from any existing group definition. This survey therefore provides a new sample of small and high-velocity young associations that are unique from previously-known populations, while also revealing large, low-density structures that link associations like Perseus OB2 and Orion. Our expanded search radius and sensitivity to larger structures also reveal features that connect to the scale of spiral arms, outlining recent star formation in the Radcliffe wave as well as a pair of perpendicular structures at older ages. These older structures may suggest a transition from perpendicular, spur-oriented star formation to formation aligned with the spiral arms in the last 30 Myr. The interactive figures below display the structures identified in galactic XYZ, l/b sky coordinates, and transverse velocity space. ​Feel free to explore them, and let me know if any association interests you!
Future Survey Work
The main limitation of previous work is its insensitivity to older populations (>~20 Myr) beyond about 500 pc, which is caused by our sample's reliance on red dwarfs, which are identifiable as young for much longer than earlier type stars, but are also much dimmer. Astrometric quality is expected to improve considerably for these stars in the upcoming Gaia DR4, which should make these older populations reachable out to 1 kpc. This will allow us to map the evolution of star formation over ~30-50 Myr within the nearest 1 kpc, which will allow us to search for these larger patterns.