English

A Proper Motion Survey Using the First Sky Pass of NEOWISE-Reactivation Data

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics 2016-02-03 v1

Abstract

The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) was reactivated in December of 2013 (NEOWISE) to search for potentially hazardous near-Earth objects. We have conducted a survey using the first sky pass of NEOWISE data and the AllWISE catalog to identify nearby stars and brown dwarfs with large proper motions (μtotal\mu_{\rm total} \gtrsim 250 mas yr1^{-1}). A total of 20,548 high proper motion objects were identified, 1,006 of which are new discoveries. This survey has uncovered a significantly larger sample of fainter objects (W2 \gtrsim13 mag) than the previous WISE motion surveys of Luhman (2014a) and Kirkpatrick et al. (2014). Many of these objects are predicted to be new L and T dwarfs based on near- and mid-infrared colors. Using estimated spectral types along with distance estimates, we have identified several objects likely belonging to the nearby Solar neighborhood (d << 25 pc). We have followed up 19 of these new discoveries with near-infrared or optical spectroscopy, focusing on potentially nearby objects, objects with the latest predicted spectral types, and potential late-type subdwarfs. This subset includes 6 M dwarfs, 5 of which are likely subdwarfs, as well as 8 L dwarfs and 5 T dwarfs, many of which have blue near-infrared colors. As an additional supplement, we provide 2MASS and AllWISE positions and photometry for every object found in our search, as well as 2MASS/AllWISE calculated proper motions.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1512.00318,
  title  = {A Proper Motion Survey Using the First Sky Pass of NEOWISE-Reactivation Data},
  author = {Adam C. Schneider and Jennifer Greco and Michael C. Cushing and J. Davy Kirkpatrick and Amy Mainzer and Christopher R. Gelino and Sergio B. Fajardo-Acosta and James Bauer},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1512.00318},
  year   = {2016}
}

Comments

Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal