THE DEUTERIUM-BURNING MASS LIMIT FOR BROWN DWARFS AND GIANT PLANETS

By D. Spiegel, Adam Burrows, J. Milsom. 2010

179 citations recorded by the source corpus.

There is no universally acknowledged criterion to distinguish brown dwarfs from planets. Numerous studies have used or suggested a definition based on an object's mass, taking the ∼13 Jupiter mass (MJ) limit for the ignition of deuterium. Here, we investigate various deuterium-burning masses for a range of models. We find that, while 13 MJ is generally a reasonable rule of thumb, the deuterium fusion mass depends on the helium abundance, the initial deuterium abundance, the metallicity of the model, and on what fraction of an object's initial deuterium abundance must combust in order for the object to qualify as having burned deuterium. Even though, for most proto-brown dwarf conditions, 50% of the initial deuterium will burn if the object's mass is ∼(13.0 ± 0.8) MJ, the full range of possibilities is significantly broader. For models ranging from zero-metallicity to more than three times solar metallicity, the deuterium-burning mass ranges from ∼11.0 MJ (for three times solar metallicity, 10% of initial deuterium burned) to ∼16.3 MJ( for zero metallicity, 90% of initial deuterium burned).

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation, Statistical and Nonlinear Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/e2b403f5567de7bf0692508a7d475221fa57d9cd

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Citations in the corpus

A REVISED AGE FOR UPPER SCORPIUS AND THE STAR FORMATION HISTORY AMONG THE F-TYPE MEMBERS OF THE SCORPIUS–CENTAURUS OB ASSOCIATION (2011, background): “Recent work by Spiegel et al. (2011) shows that objects with protosolar composition and masses of >11.9 MJup can burn at least 10% of their initial deuterium over 10 Gyr.”
MODEL ATMOSPHERES FOR MASSIVE GAS GIANTS WITH THICK CLOUDS: APPLICATION TO THE HR 8799 PLANETS AND PREDICTIONS FOR FUTURE DETECTIONS (2011, background): “We hope that the present models will help interpret the new observations of directly-imaged substellar objects anticipated in the near future, to characterize their masses and ages, and constrain their planetary nature (Spiegel et al. 2011).”
Stellar structure models in modified theories of gravity: Lessons and challenges (2019, methodology): “cts and low-mass brown dwarfs. This value has a strong dependence on the assumed chemical composition (helium abundance, metallicity, etc) of the corresponding objects, namely, M MMDB ∼ 0.010 − 0.015 [180]. Recently Rosyadi et al. [181] have investigated this MMDM limit within beyond-Horndeski theor”
Imaging Extrasolar Giant Planets (2016, background): “Moreover, this boundary is not fixed and may depend on planet composition, core mass, and accretion history (Spiegel et al. 2011; Bodenheimer et al. 2013; Mordasini 2013).”
PROBABILISTIC FORECASTING OF THE MASSES AND RADII OF OTHER WORLDS (2016, background): “We find that brown dwarfs are absorbed into this class, displaying no obvious transition (also see Figure 1) at ∼13MJ, the canonical threshold for brown dwarfs (Spiegel et al. 2011), as was also argued by Hatzes & Rauer (2015).”
Characterization of exoplanets from their formation - II. The planetary mass-radius relationship (2012, background): “This will affect the radius of objects more massive than ∼13MX at early times (e.g. Spiegel et al. 2011).”
A NEAR-INFRARED SPECTROSCOPIC STUDY OF YOUNG FIELD ULTRACOOL DWARFS (2013, background): “The dividing line between brown dwarfs and exoplanets is customarily taken to be the minimum mass at which an object fuses deuterium (11.4–14.4 MJupiter; Spiegel et al. 2011).”
Precise Radial Velocities of Giant Stars VII. Occurrence Rate of Giant Extrasolar Planets as a Function of Mass and Metallicity (2014, background): “According to the usual definition involving deuterium burning, one would have to call objects with masses of more than about 13 MJup (Spiegel et al. 2011) brown dwarfs rather than planets.”
SPECTRAL AND PHOTOMETRIC DIAGNOSTICS OF GIANT PLANET FORMATION SCENARIOS (2011, background): “Mode of formation is arguably a better, albeit less readily observable, taxonomical discriminant (Burrows et al. 2001; Chabrier et al. 2005; Spiegel et al. 2011; Schneider et al. 2011). processes take on the order of several to tens of millions of years (Pollack et al. 1996; Hubickyj et al. 2005).”
Defining and cataloging exoplanets: the exoplanet.eu database (2011, background): “Unfortunately there is an overlap in the guessed mass distribution of planets and brown dwarfs (Baraffe et al. 2010; Spiegel et al. 2011).”