Poster abstract

We present first results from the search for new low-mass members in Taurus-Auriga. We made use of the near-infrared UKIDSS Galactic Cluster Survey which covers a yet unexplored region north of the main clouds of this very young and nearby star-forming region. Our search criteria include magnitude and color limits and proper motions assigned for brighter sources using additional 2MASS data. With the calculation of a high-resolution near-infrared extinction map and the dereddening of the photometry, we were able to narrow down the search and compare the candidates with recent models. We observed spectroscopically around 100 candidates in the optical wavelengths with e.g. ISIS, ALFOSC, CAFOS and OSIRIS. We measured various spectral indices and typical line features such as H$_{\alpha}$ or the sodium and potassium doublets to assign spectral type and membership of the candidates. By this research, we hope to make a contribution to the missing M dwarfs in this important star-forming region, renew its mass function and might even find some more insights into the formation process of very low-mass objects.