The ODYSSEUS Survey. Spatial correlation of magnetospheric inclinations points to parsec-scale star-cloud connection
Abstract
The properties of stars and planets are shaped by the initial conditions of their natal clouds. However, the spatial scales over which the initial conditions can exert a significant influence are not well constrained. We report the first evidence for parsec-scale spatial correlations of stellar magnetospheric inclinations (), observed in the Lupus low-mass star forming region. Applying consensus clustering with a hierarchical density-based clustering algorithm, we demonstrate that the detected spatial dependencies are stable against perturbations by measurement uncertainties. The correlation scales are on the order of ~3 pc, which aligns with the typical scales of the Lupus molecular cloud filaments. Our results reveal a connection between large-scale forces -- in the form of expanding shells from the Upper Scorpius and Upper-Centaurus-Lupus regions -- and sub-au scale system configurations. We find that Lupus has a non-uniform distribution and suggest that this results from the preferential elongation of protostellar cores along filamentary axes. Non-uniformity would have significant implications for exoplanet occurrence rate calculations, so future work should explore the longevity of these biases driven by the star-cloud connection.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2510.26687,
title = {The ODYSSEUS Survey. Spatial correlation of magnetospheric inclinations points to parsec-scale star-cloud connection},
author = {Caeley V. Pittman and Catherine C. Espaillat and Thanawuth Thanathibodee and Nuria Calvet and Lee W. Hartmann and Sylvie Cabrit},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2510.26687},
year = {2025}
}
Comments
Accepted for publication in ApJL. 26 pages, 10 figures, 3 tables, 1 animated figure. This paper follows Pittman et al. (2025a, 2025b), located on ADS at https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2025ApJ...992..134P/abstract and https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2025arXiv250903767P/abstract