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Brown dwarfs are commonly regarded as easily-observed templates for exoplanet studies, with comparable masses, physical sizes and atmospheric properties. There is indeed considerable overlap in the photospheric temperatures of the coldest…
Growing observations of brown dwarfs have provided evidence for strong atmospheric circulation on these objects. Directly imaged planets share similar observations, and can be viewed as low-gravity versions of brown dwarfs. Vigorous…
Brown Dwarf and extrasolar planet atmospheres form clouds which strongly influence the local chemistry and physics. These clouds are globally neutral obeying dust-gas charge equilibrium which is, on short time scales, inconsistent with the…
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…
The formation mechanisms and chemical compositions of brown dwarfs likely span a diverse range. If they are formed predominantly in isolation by gravitational collapse like dwarf stars then their compositions might follow those of dwarf…
(abridged) We calculate near-infrared thermal emission spectra using a doubling-adding radiative transfer code, which includes scattering by clouds and haze. Initial temperature profiles and cloud optical depths are taken from the…
Over the last decade {\it ab initio} modeling of material properties has become widespread in diverse fields of research. It has proved to be a powerful tool for predicting various properties of matter under extreme conditions. We apply…
Brown Dwarfs are the coolest class of stellar objects known to date. Our present perception is that Brown Dwarfs follow the principles of star formation, and that Brown Dwarfs share many characteristics with planets. Being the darkest and…
Brown dwarfs that are short period ($<10\,$day) companions to actively flaring M dwarfs may provide a context to directly observe flare-driven photochemistry and structural changes in an extrasolar planet-like atmosphere. To assess the…
The admitted, conventional scenario to explain the complex spectral evolution of brown dwarfs (BD) since their first detections twenty years ago, has always been the key role played by micron-size condensates, called "dust" or "clouds", in…
We show that the total habitable volume in the atmospheres of cool brown dwarfs with effective temperatures of $\sim 250$-$350$ K is possibly larger by two orders of magnitude than that of Earth-like planets. We also study the role of…
Clouds and hazes are commonplace in the atmospheres of solar system planets and are likely ubiquitous in the atmospheres of extrasolar planets as well. Clouds affect every aspect of a planetary atmosphere, from the transport of radiation,…
Because the opacity of clouds in substellar mass object (SMO) atmospheres depends on the composition and distribution of particle sizes within the cloud, a credible cloud model is essential for accurately modeling SMO spectra and colors. We…
We present an outline of basic assumptions and governing structural equations describing atmospheres of substellar mass objects, in particular the extrasolar giant planets and brown dwarfs. Although most of the presentation of the physical…
A variety of observations provide evidence for vigorous motion in the atmospheres of brown dwarfs and directly imaged giant planets. Motivated by these observations, we examine the dynamical regime of the circulation in the atmospheres and…
Observations of brown dwarfs and relatively isolated young extrasolar giant planets have provided unprecedented details to probe atmospheric dynamics in a new regime. Questions about mechanisms governing global circulation remain to be…
We present a new suite of atmosphere models with flexible cloud parameters to investigate the effects of clouds on brown dwarfs across the L/T transition. We fit these models to a sample of 13 objects with well-known masses, distances, and…
Dust clouds influence the atmospheric structure of brown dwarfs, and they affect the heat transfer and change the gas-phase chemistry. However, the physics of their formation and evolution is not well understood. In this letter, we predict…
A variety of observational evidence demonstrates that brown dwarfs exhibit active atmospheric circulations. In this study we use a shallow-water model to investigate the global atmospheric dynamics in the stratified layer overlying the…
Lightning is present in all solar system planets which form clouds in their atmospheres. Cloud formation outside our solar system is possible in objects with much higher temperatures than on Earth or on Jupiter: Brown dwarfs and giant…