Unveiling new members in five nearby young moving groups

In the past decade many kinematic groups of young stars (< 100 Myr) were discovered in the solar neighbourhood. Since the most interesting period of planet formation overlaps with the age of these groups, their well dated members are attractive targets for exoplanet searches by direct imaging. We combined astrometric, photometric and X-ray data, and applied strict selection criteria to explore the stellar content of five nearby moving groups. We identified more than 100 potential new candidate members in the beta Pic moving group, and in the Tucana-Horologium, Columba, Carina and Argus associations. In order to further assess and confirm their membership status, we analysed radial velocity data and lithium equivalent widths extracted from high-resolution spectra of 54 candidate stars. We identified 35 new probable/possible young moving group members: four in the beta Pic moving group, 11 in the Columba association, 16 in the Carina association and four in the Argus association. We found serendipitously a new AB Dor moving group member as well. For four Columba systems Hipparcos-based parallaxes have already been available and as they are consistent with the predicted kinematic parallaxes, they can be considered as secure new members.