Discovery of 11 New T Dwarfs in the Two Micron All Sky Survey, Including a Possible L/T Transition Binary

By D. Looper, J. D. Kirkpatrick, A. Burgasser. 2007

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We present the discovery of 11 new T dwarfs, found during the course of a photometric survey for mid-to-late T dwarfs in the 2MASS Point Source Catalog and from a proper-motion-selected sample of ultracool dwarfs in the 2MASS Working Database. Using the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility SpeX spectrograph, we obtained low-resolution (R ∼ 150) spectroscopy, allowing us to derive near-infrared spectral types of T2-T8. We also present improved signal-to-noise ratio SpeX low-resolution spectroscopy of the near-infrared T0 standard SDSS J120747.17+024424.8 and T1 standard SDSSp J083717.22-000018.3. One of these new T dwarfs, 2MASS J13243559+6358284, was also discovered independently by Metchev et al. This object is spectroscopically peculiar and possibly a binary and/or very young (<300 Myr). We specifically attempted to model the spectrum of this source as a composite binary to reproduce its peculiar spectral characteristics. The latest type object in our sample is a T8 dwarf, 2MASS J07290002-3954043, now one of the four latest type T dwarfs known. All 11 T dwarfs are nearby given their spectrophotometric distance estimates, with one T dwarf within 10 pc and eight additional T dwarfs within 25 pc, if single. These new additions increase the 25 pc census of T dwarfs by ∼14%. Their proximity offers an excellent opportunity to probe for companions at separations closer than are possible for more distant T dwarfs.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Computational Mechanics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/0add4ebcdd651cc6145238f0c7760d799a836420

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Citations in the corpus

The Field Substellar Mass Function Based on the Full-sky 20 pc Census of 525 L, T, and Y Dwarfs (2020, background): “• 2MASS 0729-3954: This T8 pec dwarf was discovered by Looper et al. (2007), who noted excess Y -band flux and depressed H- and K-band fluxes relative to the T8 standard.”
THE HAWAII INFRARED PARALLAX PROGRAM. I. ULTRACOOL BINARIES AND THE L/T TRANSITION, (2012, unknown): “…et al. (2003b); (65) Lépine et al. (2009); (66) Liu et al. (2010); (67) Liu et al. (2011a); (68) Lodieu et al. (2005); (69) Lodieu et al. (2007); (70) Looper et al. (2007); (71) Looper et al. (2008); (72) Loutrel et al. (2011); (73) Lucas et al. (2010); (74) Luhman et al. (2007); (75) Luhman…”
LARGE-AMPLITUDE VARIATIONS OF AN L/T TRANSITION BROWN DWARF: MULTI-WAVELENGTH OBSERVATIONS OF PATCHY, HIGH-CONTRAST CLOUD FEATURES (2012, methodology): “Our distance estimate is notably closer than that of 18.8 pc cataloged by Looper et al. (2007) using the MKO-J relationship of Liu et al. (2006).”
FUNDAMENTAL PARAMETERS AND SPECTRAL ENERGY DISTRIBUTIONS OF YOUNG AND FIELD AGE OBJECTS WITH MASSES SPANNING THE STELLAR TO PLANETARY REGIME (2015, unknown): “…(44) Fan et al. (2000), (45) Golimowski et al. (2004), (46) Kirkpatrick et al. (2011), (47) Bonnefoy et al. (2014), (48) Deacon et al. (2005), (49) Looper et al. (2007), (50) Burgasser et al. (2010a), (51) Allers & Liu (2013), (52) Artigau et al. (2010), (53) Cushing et al. (2005a), (54) Wilson…”
SpeX SPECTROSCOPY OF UNRESOLVED VERY LOW MASS BINARIES. I. IDENTIFICATION OF 17 CANDIDATE BINARIES STRADDLING THE L DWARF/T DWARF TRANSITION (2009, methodology): “…2006a,b, 2007a, 2008a,b); Cruz et al. (2004); Burgasser & McElwain (2006); Chiu et al. (2006); McElwain & Burgasser (2006); Reid et al. (2006); Burgasser (2007a,b,c); Liebert & Burgasser (2007); Looper et al. (2007, 2008b); Luhman et al. (2007); Siegler et al. (2007) and Sheppard & Cushing (2009).”
THE HAWAII INFRARED PARALLAX PROGRAM. II. YOUNG ULTRACOOL FIELD DWARFS (2016, unknown): “…al. (2010); (45) Knapp et al. (2004); (46) Kuzuhara et al. (2013); (47) Leggett et al. (1998); (48) Leggett et al. (2002); (49) Liu et al. (2013b); (50) Looper et al. (2007b); (51) Looper et al. (2007a); (52) Looper et al. (2008b); (53) Lowrance et al. (1999); (54) Lowrance et al. (2000); (55)…”
DISCOVERIES FROM A NEAR-INFRARED PROPER MOTION SURVEY USING MULTI-EPOCH TWO MICRON ALL-SKY SURVEY DATA (2010, background): “Looper et al. (2007) has already discussed three of these discoveries – 2MASS J11061191+2754215 (T2.”
Discovery of Two Nearby Peculiar L Dwarfs from the 2MASS Proper-Motion Survey: Young or Metal-Rich? (2008, methodology): “Reduced CIA H2 and/or increased condensate opacity are likely responsible for the triangular-shaped H-band spectra characteristic of low-gravity, late-type M and earlytype L dwarfs seen both in young clusters (e.g., Orion: Lucas et al. 2001; Cha II, Rho Oph: Allers et al. 2007) and associations (e.g”