Related papers: Probing brown dwarf formation mechanisms with Gaia
Context. Most observational studies so far point towards brown dwarfs sharing a similar formation mechanism as the one accepted for low mass stars. However, larger databases and more systematic studies are needed before strong conclusions…
The origin of brown dwarfs (BDs) is an important component of the theory of star formation, because BDs are approximately as numerous as solar mass stars. It has been suggested that BDs originate from the gravitational fragmentation of…
By combining photometry from the 2MASS Point Source Catalog and the USNO-B1.0 Catalog with optical and infrared spectroscopy, I have performed a search for young brown dwarfs in an area of 225 deg^2 encompassing all of the Taurus…
We develop statistical methods within a Bayesian framework to infer the star formation history from photometric surveys of pre-main sequence populations. Our procedures include correcting for biases due to extinction in magnitude-limited…
Within the Local Universe galaxies can be studied in great detail star by star, and here we review the results of quantitative studies in nearby dwarf galaxies. The Color-Magnitude Diagram synthesis method is well established as the most…
This review concentrates almost entirely on globular star clusters. It emphasises the increasing realisation that few of the traditional problems of star cluster astronomy can be studied in isolation: the influence of the Galaxy affects…
This review aims to give an overview of the contribution of the Hubble Space Telescope to our understanding of the detailed properties of Local Group dwarf galaxies and their older stellar populations. The exquisite stable high spatial…
Brown dwarfs constitute a missing link between low-mass stars and giant planets. Their atmospheres display chemical species typical of planets, and one could wonder whether they also have weather-like patterns. While brown dwarf surface…
Gaia will identify several 1e5 white dwarfs, most of which will be in the solar neighborhood at distances of a few hundred parsecs. Ground-based optical follow-up spectroscopy of this sample of stellar remnants is essential to unlock the…
Under the right conditions brown dwarfs that gain enough mass late in their lives to cross the hydrogen burning limit will not turn into low-mass stars, but rather remain essentially brown dwarf-like. While these objects, called either…
In this review, we summarize our present knowledge of the behaviour of the mass-radius relationship from solar-type stars down to terrestrial planets, across the regime of substellar objects, brown dwarfs and giant planets. Particular…
Star formation plays a central role in the evolution of galaxies and of the Universe as a whole. Studies of star-forming regions in the local universe have shown that star formation typically occurs in a clustered fashion. Building a…
We present a new study of the evolution of the Carina dwarf galaxy that includes a simultaneous derivation of its orbit and star formation history. The structure of the galaxy is constrained through orbital parameters derived from the…
Giant planets and brown dwarfs are thought to form via a combination of pathways, including bottom-up mechanisms in which gas is accreted onto a solid core and top-down mechanisms in which gas collapses directly into a gravitationally-bound…
The mass distribution of neutron stars encodes information about their formation and binary evolution. We compare the masses of two distinct populations: I) the recently identified Gaia neutron stars in wide orbits with solar-like…
Globular star clusters that formed at the same cosmic time may have evolved rather differently from a dynamical point of view (because that evolution depends on the internal environment) through a variety of processes that tend…
Stellar mass governs stellar evolution and the distribution of stellar masses plays a central role in the dynamical evolution of stellar clusters. Using high-precision astrometry and photometry from Gaia DR3, we investigate mass segregation…
(abridged) The recent evidence obtained by Briceno et al. that star-formation in Taurus-Auriga (TA) may be producing significantly fewer brown dwarfs (BDs) per star than the ONC is investigated by setting up a realistic model stellar plus…
Dusty primordial disks surrounding young low-mass stars are revealing tracers of stellar and planetary formation. The evolution and lifetime of these disks define the boundary conditions of the mechanisms of planet formation. Stellar…
These lectures attempt to expose the most important ideas, which have been proposed to explain the formation of stars with particular emphasis on the formation of brown dwarfs and low-mass stars. We first describe the important physical…