The Curious Case of PDS 11: A Nearby, >10 Myr Old, Classical T Tauri Binary System

Abstract

We present results of our study of the PDS 11 binary system, which belongs to a rare class of isolated, high Galactic latitude T Tauri stars. Our spectroscopic analysis reveals that PDS 11 is an M2–M2 binary system with both components showing similar Hα emission strengths. Both the components appear to be accreting and are classical T Tauri stars. The lithium doublet Li i λ6708, a signature of youth, is present in the spectrum of PDS 11A, but not in PDS 11B. From the application of lithium depletion boundary age-dating method and a comparison with the Li i λ6708 equivalent width distribution of moving groups, we estimated an age of 10–15 Myr for PDS 11A. Comparison with pre-main sequence evolutionary models indicates that PDS 11A is a 0.4 M ⊙ T Tauri star at a distance of 114–131 pc. PDS 11 system does not appear to be associated with any known star-forming regions or moving groups. PDS 11 is a new addition, after TWA 30 and LDS 5606, to the interesting class of old, dusty, wide binary classical T Tauri systems in which both components are actively accreting.