Astron. Astrophys. 347, L15-L18 (1999)

1. Introduction

The Orion Nebula cluster is one of the most prominent and nearby ( pc) star forming regions (for a review see Genzel & Stutzki 1989). Its core contains a very dense cluster of young ( yr) stars (cf. Herbig & Terndrup 1986; McCaughrean & Stauffer 1994; Hillenbrand 1997). The Trapezium ( ABCD), the system of the four most massive and luminous O-type and early B-type stars, is located in the center of the cluster. The strong stellar wind and the ionizing radiation of C has strong effects on the surrounding cloud material (Bally et al. 1998; see also Richling & Yorke 1998).

Petr et al. (1998; P98 hereafter) presented the results of 130 mas resolution near-infrared speckle holographic observations of the Trapezium cluster core, in which they could detect sub-arcsecond companions of the two Trapezium stars A and B. Simon et al. (1999) reported the detection of an additional, very faint companion of B. In this paper we present the first near-infrared bispectrum speckle interferometry observations with diffraction-limited resolution of 57 mas in the H-band and 76 mas in the K-band.

© European Southern Observatory (ESO) 1999

Online publication: June 30, 1999
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