Cepheid Associates: Star Formation and Distance Calibration

XMMNewton observations are powerful discriminants between young stars and theold field population because of the well known relation between the age of lowmass stars and their Xray strength. We use this property to identify youngresolved physical companions of Cepheids and also low mass members of clusterscontaining Cepheids. This will probe the maximum separation in Cepheid binaries,a diagnostic of star formation. The target list contains the 5 brightestCepheids in the recent analysis of Cepheids in clusters (Anderson, et al. 2013).This project will identify low mass cluster members which provide a calibrationof the distances of clusters. truncated!, Please see actual data for full text [truncated!, Please see actual data for full text]