SF-08-0004

Revisiting the Membership, Multiplicity, and Age of the Beta Pictoris Moving Group in the Gaia Era

Rena A Lee, Eric Gaidos, Jennifer van Saders, Gregory A Feiden, Jonathan Gagne

Determining the precise ages of young (tens to a few hundred Myr) kinematic (“moving") groups is important for placing star, protoplanetary disk, and planet observations on an evolutionary timeline. The nearby ?25 Myr-old ?? Pictoris Moving Group (BPMG) is an important benchmark for studying stars and planetary systems at the end of the primordial disk phase. Gaia DR3 astrometry and photometry, combined with ground-based observations and more sophisticated stellar models, permits a systematic re-evaluation of BPMG membership and age. We combined Gaia astrometry with previously published radial velocities to evaluate moving-group membership in a Bayesian framework. To minimize the effect of unresolved stellar multiplicity on age estimates, we identified and excluded multi-star systems using Gaia astrometry, ground-based adaptive optics imaging, and multi-epoch radial velocities, as well as the literature identifications. We estimated age using isochrone and lithium-depletion-boundary (LDB) fitting with models that account for the effect of magnetic activity and spots on young, rapidly rotating stars. We report an age of 33(+9)(-11) Myr to the BPMG based on isochrone fitting to the single-star and resolved-binary sample, which is older than, but within the uncertainties of, previous values. Based on LDB fitting, we also report an age of 23±8 Myr, and discuss the model and method dependence of age estimates for young moving groups.