A mid-IR survey of the L 1641-N region with ISOCAM

Abstract

We present an analysis of the L 1641 outflow region using broad-band and narrow-band imaging data at mid-infrared wavelengths from ISOCAM. We detect a total of 34 sources in the $7.65^{\prime}$ x $8.40^{\prime}$ region covered by the broad-band filters. Four of these sources have no reported detection in previous studies of the region. We find that the source previously identified as the near-IR counter-part to the IRAS detected point-source (IRAS 05338-0624) is not the brightest source in the wavelength region of the IRAS 12 \micron\ filter. We find instead that a nearby object (within the beam of IRAS and not detected at near-IR wavelengths) outshines all others sources in the area by a factor of $\sim$2. We submit that this source is likely to be the IRAS detected point source. A comparison of the near-IR (J-H vs H-K) and mid-IR (J-K vs [6.7 um]-[14 um]) color-color plots shows only four sources with excess emission at near-IR wavelengths, but atleast 85% of all sources show excess emission at mid-IR wavelengths. The CVF spectra suggest a range of evolutionary status in the program stars ranging from embedded YSOs to the young disks. When combined with optical and near-IR age estimates, these results show active current star-formation in the region that has been on-going for at least 2 Myr.