Dr. Mathieu will conduct a research program with this Presidential Young Investigator award which will cover three areas of astronomy: the study of young binary star systems, the dynamical evolution of star forming regions, and the motions of massive stars. The core of the program is an ongoing accumulation of precise radial velocity measurements for more than 200 young low mass stars, permitting an analysis of velocity distributions of young stellar systems, the identification of young binary stars, and the determination of their orbital elements. Precise measurements of the radial velocities of stars have a number of important uses in astronomy. Among them are the identification and subsequent study of the evolution of binary star systems, evaluation of the dynamical stability of stars located within star forming regions, and the kinematics of massive stars in the star forming regions. One important goal of Dr. Mathieu's research is to establish a new set of fundamental velocity standards.
