Rosat detections of X-ray emission from young B-type stars

We present first results of a series of pointings of the Rosat HRI at visual binaries consisting of a B-star with a later-type companion. The binaries selected for this study are very likely physical pairs. Dating of the B-type stars with respect to the zero-age main sequence, as well as spectroscopic observations of the late-type stars, provides evidence for the extreme youth of these systems with ages typically near or below 10 exp 8 yr. Surprisingly, the late-B component was in many cases detected as an X-ray source, in contrast to previous findings that X-ray emission among late-B field stars is rather uncommon.