Spectroscopic Confirmation of a Population of Isolated, Intermediate-mass Young Stellar Objects

Wide-field searches for young stellar objects (YSOs) can place useful constraints on the prevalence of clustered versus distributed star formation. The Spitzer/IRAC Candidate YSO (SPICY) catalog is one of the largest compilations of such objects (∼120,000 candidates in the Galactic midplane). Many SPICY candidates are spatially clustered, but, perhaps surprisingly, approximately half the candidates appear spatially distributed. To better characterize this unexpected population and confirm its nature, we obtained Palomar/DBSP spectroscopy for 26 of the optically bright ( G < 15 mag) “isolated” YSO candidates. We confirm the YSO classifications of all 26 sources based on their positions on the Hertzsprung–Russell diagram, H and Ca ii line emission from over half the sample, and robust detection of infrared excesses. This implies a contamination rate of