2009ApJ...706..896M

We investigate the young stellar population in and near the cometary globule Ori I-2. The analysis is based on deep Nordic Optical Telescope R-band and Hα images, JCMT SCUBA 450 and 850 µm images combined with near-infrared Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) photometry and mid-infrared archival Spitzer images obtained with the Infrared Array Camera (IRAC; 3.6, 4.5, 5.8, and 8 µm), and MIPS (24 and 70 µm) instruments. We identify a total of 125 sources within the 5'x5' region imaged by the IRAC. Of these sources, 87 are detected in the R-band image and 51 are detected in the 2MASS. The detailed physical properties of the sources are explored using a combination of near/mid-infrared color-color diagrams, graybody fitting of spectral energy distributions (SEDs) and an online SED fitting tool that uses a library of two-dimensional radiation transfer based accretion models of young stellar objects with disks. Ori I-2 shows clear evidence of triggered star formation with four young low-luminosity pre-main-sequence (PMS) stars embedded in the globule. At least two, possibly as many as four, additional low-mass PMS objects were discovered in the field which are probably part of the young σ Orionis cluster. Among the PMS stars which have formed in the globule, MIR-54 is a young, deeply embedded Class 0/I object; MIR-51 and 52 are young Class II sources, while MIR-89 is a more evolved, heavily extincted Class II object with its apparent colors mimicking a Class 0/I object. The Class 0/I object MIR-54 coincides with a previously known IRAS source and is a strong submillimeter source. It is most likely the source for the molecular outflow and the large parsec-scale Herbig-Haro (HH) flow. However, the nearby Class II source, MIR-52, which is strong a Hα emission line star, also appears to drive an outflow approximately aligned with the outflow from MIR-54, and because of the proximity of the two outflows, either star could contribute. MIR-89 appears to excite a low-excitation HH object, HH 992, discovered for the first time in this study.