Program: GN-2017A-Q-12

Embedded clusters are ideal targets to study the early stages of star formation and evolution (Bica et al. 2003). We have selected a sample of six embedded clusters from several catalogs (see Kumar et al. 2006, Bica et al. 2003, Dutra et al. 2003). These clusters are placed in the Cygnus X complex and they are only identified with no deep studies estimating their main properties. By using data from sdss, 2MASS and WISE surveys, we performed preliminary analysis identifying the presence of very reddened stellar populations with several targets showing probable IR excess. These objects were considered candidates to YSOs and/or PMS objects. We propose to observe several of the selected targets (9 in Band 1 or 8 in Band 3) using GNIRS to obtain their spectra in K-band (200 - 222 nm) and identify their main spectral lines. Spectral analysis, complemented with photometric data, will allow us to classify them as early or late type stars and will help to characterize the stellar populations of each cluster. These data will lead to estimate the main cluster parameters (distances, reddening, age) using the spectrophotometric technique and theoretical evolutionary models. All this information will help to obtain a better picture of the stellar formation processes in the Cygnus X complex and to put general constrains to different stellar evolution theories. Precise distances and reddening values will also contribute to a better description of the Galactic structure towards the edge of the first and second quadrants.