scholarly journals Very Low Mass Stars and Brown Dwarf Candidates in Orion OB1a and OB1b

2003 ◽  
Vol 211 ◽  
pp. 119-122
Author(s):  
Frederick M. Walter ◽  
William H. Sherry ◽  
Scott J. Wolk

VRI images within the belt of Orion and the Ori OB1a association reveal a pre-main sequence locus extending to below our completeness limit of about V=21. We report here on followup JHK imaging and optical and near–IR spectroscopy of the faintest and reddest of the PMS candidates. We find that they are unreddened mid-to-late M “stars” which fall on a few million year isochrone. Masses are largely substellar, reaching as low as about 0.02 M⊙ (20 Jovian masses). The space density of the substellar objects is high.

1993 ◽  
Vol 137 ◽  
pp. 171-173
Author(s):  
Rafael Rebolo ◽  
Eduardo L. Martin ◽  
Antonio Magazzu

AbstractWe are conducting a search for lithium in very low mass objects with the aim of discriminating between stellar and substellar objects. Lithium is expected to be preserved in brown dwarfs with M/M⊙ ≤0.06, while it is known to be efficiently destroyed in low mass stars. In this paper we present high resolution observations in the region of the λ 6708 Li I resonance line of 5 very low mass dwarfs. In none of them lithium is detected, implying a Li destruction in their atmospheres of about four orders of magnitude. Our results suggest that these objects are probably very low mass stars rather than brown dwarfs.


Author(s):  
Tien-Hao Hsieh ◽  
Shih-Ping Lai ◽  
Arnaud Belloche ◽  
Friedrich Wyrowski

AbstractThe formation mechanism of brown dwarfs (BDs) is one of the long-standing problems in star formation because the typical Jeans mass in molecular clouds is too large to form these substellar objects. To answer this question, it is crucial to study a BD at the embedded phase (proto-brown dwarf). IRAS16253 is classified as a Very Low Luminosity Object (VeLLO, Lint < 0.1L⊙), which is considered as a proto-brown dwarf candidate. We use the IRAM 30m, APEX telescopes and the SMA to probe the molecular jet/outflow driven by IRAS 16253 in CO (2–1), (6–5), and (7–6) and study its dynamical features and physical properties. We detect a wiggling pattern in the position-velocity diagrams of the jets. Assuming that this pattern is due to the orbital motion of a binary system, we obtain the current mass of the binary is ~0.026 M⊙. Together with the low parent core mass, IRAS16253 will likely form one or two proto-BD in the future. This is the first time that the current mass of a proto-BD binary system is identified through the dynamics of the jets. Since IRAS16253 is located in an isolated environment, we suggest that BDs can form through fragmentation and collapse like low mass stars.


2003 ◽  
Vol 211 ◽  
pp. 427-435 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gibor Basri ◽  
Subanjoy Mohanty

One of the triumphs of the last 2 decades has been the establishment of the relation between stellar rotation and magnetic activity in solar-type stars. Rapid rotation produces strong activity, which in turn provides magnetic braking to reduce rotation. A solar-type dynamo cannot operate in fully convective stars, so it is of interest to study mid and late M stars. Hints that a dramatic change occurs in very low-mass stars and substellar objects appeared in 1995. The past 7 years have seen substantial progress on this question, with the conclusion that the rotation-activity connection indeed breaks down. As one goes to the bottom of the main sequence and below, the amount of magnetic activity takes a sudden fall, with a concomitant increase in the spindown times of the objects. We summarize these results, and some theoretical work which helps explain them. We also present some remaining mysteries, such as why very young objects seem excessively active, and flaring in objects with no other signs of magnetic activity.


1997 ◽  
Vol 189 ◽  
pp. 227-233
Author(s):  
I. Baraffe ◽  
F. Allard

Over the past decade considerable effort, both observational and theoretical, has been directed towards a more accurate determination of the stellar lower main sequence and of the sub-stellar domain covered by Brown Dwarfs and Planets. Astronomers have been looking for brown dwarfs for more than a decade, either with standard astronomical technics or with microlensing experiments. A breakthrough in the search for brown dwarfs was very recently achieved with the discovery of the first cool brown dwarf GL 229B (Nakajima et al. 1995). At the same epoch, the search for planets blossomed with the discovery of a Jupiter - mass companion of the star 51 Pegasi (Mayor and Queloz 199,5). Now, the number of faint, cool stars and substellar objects is rising rapidly.


1998 ◽  
Vol 188 ◽  
pp. 220-221
Author(s):  
N.S. Schulz ◽  
J.H. Kastner

Observations with the Einstein Observatory indicated that stellar X-ray activity diminishes in clusters older than 70 Myr (Pleiades). ROSAT observations of older clusters also support this result (see Caillault 1995 and references therein). The timescales over which young stars diminish in X-ray luminosity depends on spectral type (Randich et al. 1996), leading to the conclusion that X-ray activity in late type PMS depends on age and stellar mass. F and G-stars approach the main sequence much faster and the diminishing rates of X-ray activity from F to M stars start to differ considerably. Kastner et al. (1997) observed that the mean of the ratio Lx/Lbol for K and M dwarf stars increases monotonically for low-mass stars from the very early T Tauri stage through the age of the Pleiades cluster, reflecting the contraction and spin-up of such stars during pre-main sequence evolution. This ratio then decreases towards middle aged stars, as late-type main sequence stars spin down. Here we extend this result by including more distant clusters that are younger overall than those considered by Kastner et al. and also including earlier spectral types.


2013 ◽  
Vol 8 (S299) ◽  
pp. 64-65
Author(s):  
Julien Rameau ◽  
Gaël Chauvin ◽  
Anne-Marie Lagrange ◽  
Philippe Delorme ◽  
Justine Lannier

AbstractWe present the results of two three-year surveys of young and nearby stars to search for wide orbit giant planets. On the one hand, we focus on early-type and massive, namely β Pictoris analogs. On the other hand, we observe late type and very low mass stars, i.e., M dwarfs. We report individual detections of new planetary mass objects. According to our deep detection performances, we derive the observed frequency of giant planets between these two classes of parent stars. We find frequency between 6 to 12% but we are not able to assess a/no correlation with the host-mass.


2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (S316) ◽  
pp. 328-333
Author(s):  
W. Chantereau ◽  
C. Charbonnel ◽  
G. Meynet

AbstractOur knowledge of the formation and early evolution of globular clusters (GCs) has been totally shaken with the discovery of the peculiar chemical properties of their long-lived host stars. Therefore, the interpretation of the observed Colour Magnitude Diagrams (CMD) and of the properties of the GC stellar populations requires the use of new stellar models computed with relevant chemical compositions. In this paper we use the grid of evolution models for low-mass stars computed by Chantereau et al. (2015) with the initial compositions of second-generation stars as predicted by the fast rotating massive stars scenario to build synthesis models of GCs. We discuss the implications of the assumed initial chemical distribution on 13 Gyr isochrones. We build population synthesis models to predict the fraction of stars born with various helium abundances in present day globular clusters (assuming an age of 13 Gyr). With the current assumptions, 61 % of stars on the main sequence are predicted to be born with a helium abundance in mass fraction, Yini, smaller than 0.3 and only 11 % have a Yini larger than 0.4. Along the horizontal branch, the fraction of stars with Yini inferior to 0.3 is similar to that obtained along the main sequence band (63 %), while the fraction of very He-enriched stars is significantly decreased (only 3 % with Yini larger than 0.38).


2018 ◽  
Vol 620 ◽  
pp. A171 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Luque ◽  
G. Nowak ◽  
E. Pallé ◽  
D. Kossakowski ◽  
T. Trifonov ◽  
...  

We announce the discovery of two planetary companions orbiting around the low-mass stars Ross 1020 (GJ 3779, M4.0V) and LP 819-052 (GJ 1265, M4.5V). The discovery is based on the analysis of CARMENES radial velocity (RV) observations in the visual channel as part of its survey for exoplanets around M dwarfs. In the case of GJ 1265, CARMENES observations were complemented with publicly available Doppler measurements from HARPS. The datasets reveal two planetary companions, one for each star, that share very similar properties: minimum masses of 8.0 ± 0.5 M⊕ and 7.4 ± 0.5 M⊕ in low-eccentricity orbits with periods of 3.023 ± 0.001 d and 3.651 ± 0.001 d for GJ 3779 b and GJ 1265 b, respectively. The periodic signals around 3 d found in the RV data have no counterpart in any spectral activity indicator. Furthermore, we collected available photometric data for the two host stars, which confirm that the additional Doppler variations found at periods of approximately 95 d can be attributed to the rotation of the stars. The addition of these planets to a mass-period diagram of known planets around M dwarfs suggests a bimodal distribution with a lack of short-period low-mass planets in the range of 2–5 M⊕. It also indicates that super-Earths (>5 M⊕) currently detected by RV and transit techniques around M stars are usually found in systems dominated by a single planet.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document