Global properties of star formation in Taurus

Abstract

A careful analysis of the data available in the literature has been carried out to determine the global properties of star formation in Taurus. Three main trends arise in the data: (1) the magnetic field in Taurus is distorted in the direction of the proper motions of the T Tauri Stars (TTS) (see below). (2) the groups with different proper motions seem to have different stellar contents. An analysis of the stellar population based on the equivalent width of H-alpha, W(H-alpha), shows that groups I and II (Jones and Herbig, 1979) have approximately the same population (TTS show either large or small W(H-alpha)). However in group II (central part of the cloud) there are also a large number of stars with intermediate W(H-alpha) (Gomez de Castro and Pudritz, 1990). (3) the mass function of the NH3 cores (thought to be "protostellar cores") is dN/dM is-proportional-to M is-proportional-to with alpha = -1(3).5, in contrast with the IMF of the TTS given by Cohen and Kuhi (1979), alpha = -2.5. Only point (1) will be outlined in this contribution.