Description
We present the results of a photometric BVI survey of 0.9deg^2^ around the Wolf-Rayet binary gamma^2^ Vel and its early-type common proper motion companion gamma^1^ Vel (together referred to as the gamma Vel system). Several hundred pre-main-sequence (PMS) stars are identified and the youth of a subset of these is spectroscopically confirmed by the presence of lithium in their atmospheres, Halpha emission and high levels of X-ray activity. We show that the PMS stars are kinematically coherent and spatially concentrated around gamma Vel. The PMS stars have similar proper motions to gamma Vel, to main-sequence (MS) stars around gamma Vel and to early-type stars of the wider Vela OB2 association of which gamma^2^ Vel is the brightest member.
|