A STUDY OF THE DIVERSE T DWARF POPULATION REVEALED BY WISE

By G. Mace, J. Davy Kirkpatrick, M. Cushing, C. Gelino, R. Griffith, M. Skrutskie, Kenneth A. Marsh, E. L. Wright, Peter Eisenhardt, I. McLean and 16 more. 2013

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We report the discovery of 87 new T dwarfs uncovered with the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) and 3 brown dwarfs with extremely red near-infrared colors that exhibit characteristics of both L and T dwarfs. Two of the new T dwarfs are likely binaries with L7 ± 1 primaries and mid-type T secondaries. In addition, our follow-up program has confirmed 10 previously identified T dwarfs and 4 photometrically selected L and T dwarf candidates in the literature. This sample, along with the previous WISE discoveries, triples the number of known brown dwarfs with spectral types later than T5. Using the WISE All-Sky Source Catalog we present updated color–color and color-type diagrams for all the WISE-discovered T and Y dwarfs. Near-infrared spectra of the new discoveries are presented along with spectral classifications. To accommodate later T dwarfs we have modified the integrated flux method of determining spectral indices to instead use the median flux. Furthermore, a newly defined J-narrow index differentiates the early-type Y dwarfs from late-type T dwarfs based on the J-band continuum slope. The K/J indices for this expanded sample show that 32% of late-type T dwarfs have suppressed K-band flux and are blue relative to the spectral standards, while only 11% are redder than the standards. Comparison of the Y/J and K/J index to models suggests diverse atmospheric conditions and supports the possible re-emergence of clouds after the L/T transition. We also discuss peculiar brown dwarfs and candidates that were found not to be substellar, including two young stellar objects and two active galactic nuclei. The substantial increase in the number of known late-type T dwarfs provides a population that will be used to test models of cold atmospheres and star formation. The coolest WISE-discovered brown dwarfs are the closest of their type and will remain the only sample of their kind for many years to come.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/80ba2a2fdc2d331c6210d52cbda282244467c6bb

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Citations in the corpus

IDENTIFICATION OF 1.4 MILLION ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEI IN THE MID-INFRARED USING WISE DATA (2015, background): “%) of Type 1 AGNs (emission line widths > 1500 km s−1); the remainder are almost entirely 3 See Kirkpatrick et al. (2011); Cushing et al. (2011); Mace et al. (2013); Cushing et al. (2014) for some samples of brown dwarfs discovered with WISE.”
The Field Substellar Mass Function Based on the Full-sky 20 pc Census of 525 L, T, and Y Dwarfs (2020, background): “In fact, the most extreme subdwarf in the 20-pc sample, WISE 2005+5424, has a model fit temperature of 600-900K (Mace et al. 2013b), which is also roughly consistent with the field estimate of 574K.”
THE HAWAII INFRARED PARALLAX PROGRAM. II. YOUNG ULTRACOOL FIELD DWARFS (2016, background): “However, since its discovery, about a dozen similarly red objects have been identified that do not appear to be low gravity (Looper et al. 2008b [though see Appendix for discussion of 2MASS J2148+4003]; Kirkpatrick et al. 2010, 2011; Mace et al. 2013; Thompson et al. 2013; Marocco et al. 2014).”
Retrieving scattering clouds and disequilibrium chemistry in the atmosphere of HR 8799e (2020, background): “…by variability, because spectral template brown dwarfs that reproduce the spectral properties of HR 8799e well have been found to exhibit considerable variability, possibly up to a 20–30% peak-to-peak amplitude (see the discussion of Mace et al. 2013; Biller et al. 2015 in Bonnefoy et al. 2016).”
BANYAN. II. VERY LOW MASS AND SUBSTELLAR CANDIDATE MEMBERS TO NEARBY, YOUNG KINEMATIC GROUPS WITH PREVIOUSLY KNOWN SIGNS OF YOUTH (2013, background): “This subsample includes the 11 URLs that have been identified by Looper et al. (2008), Kirkpatrick et al. (2008), Kirkpatrick et al. (2010), Mace et al. (2013) and Thompson et al. (2013).”
Discovery of a warm, dusty giant planet around HIP 65426 (2017, background): “…them to a large variety of reference low-resolution spectra of late-M and L dwarfs compiled from the literature (Burgasser 2014; Best et al. 2015; Mace et al. 2013; Allers & Liu 2013) as well as spectra of young imaged exoplanets and brown dwarfs close to the L/T transition (Patience et al.…”
FUNDAMENTAL PARAMETERS AND SPECTRAL ENERGY DISTRIBUTIONS OF YOUNG AND FIELD AGE OBJECTS WITH MASSES SPANNING THE STELLAR TO PLANETARY REGIME (2015, unknown): “…(24) Kirkpatrick et al. (2006), (25) Cushing et al. (2009), (26) Kirkpatrick et al. (1997), (27) Tinney (1993), (28) Burgasser et al. (2008b), (29) Mace et al. (2013), (30) Kirkpatrick et al. (2008), (31) Reid et al. (2008), (32) Chiu et al. (2006), (33) Burgasser et al. (2008c), (34) Kirkpatrick…”