Discovery of seven T Tauri stars and a brown dwarf candidate in the nearby

Discovery of seven T Tauri stars and a brown dwarf candidate in the nearby TW Hydrae Association. Abstract We report the discovery of five T Tauri star systems , two of which are resolved binaries, in the vicinity of the nearest known region of recent star formation , the TW Hydrae Association. The newly discovered systems display the same signatures of youth (namely high X-ray flux, large Li abundance and strong chromospheric activity) and the same proper motion as the original five members. These similarities firmly establish the group as a bona fide T Tauri association, unique in its proximity to Earth and its complete isolation from any known molecular clouds. At an age of ∼10 Myr and a distance of ∼50 pc, the association members are excellent candidates for future studies of circumstellar disk dissipation and the formation of brown dwarfs and planets. Indeed, as an example, our speckle imaging revealed a faint, very likely companion 2