Related papers: Neglected Silicon Dioxide Polymorphs as Clouds in …
Most brown dwarfs have atmospheres with temperatures cold enough to form clouds. A variety of materials likely condense, including refractory metal oxides and silicates; the precise compositions and crystal structures of predicted cloud…
We examine the positions of substellar objects in mid-infrared color-magnitude and color-color diagrams to distinguish between cloudy and cloud-free atmospheres. Using Spitzer mid-infrared spectra of 113 M5-T9 ultracool dwarfs, we derive…
Within 20 pc of the Sun there are currently 29 known cold brown dwarfs, sources with measured distances and an estimated effective temperature between that of Jupiter (170K) and ~500K. These sources are almost all isolated and are the…
Mid-infrared spectra of a few T Tauri stars (TTS) taken with the Infrared Spectrograph (IRS) on board the Spitzer Space Telescope show prominent narrow emission features indicating silica (crystalline silicon dioxide). Silica is not a major…
This letter reports 12 novel spectroscopic detections of warm circumstellar dust orbiting polluted white dwarfs using JWST MIRI. The disks span two orders of magnitude in fractional infrared brightness and more than double the number of…
Silicate clouds are known to significantly impact the spectra of late L-type brown dwarfs, with observable absorption features at ~ 10 micron. JWST has reopened our window to the mid-infrared with unprecedented sensitivity, bringing the…
Crystalline silicates are an important tracer to the dust evolution in protoplanetary disks. In the inner disk, amorphous silicates are annealed by the high temperatures. These crystalline silicates are radially and vertically distributed…
We present results from examining the silicate cloud modeling of four JWST-observed hot Jupiters in the context of brown dwarf theory to further explore signatures of formation in present-day atmospheres. We contextualize our understanding…
Carbon dioxide is one of the three most abundant species within the ice mantles around dust grains inside molecular clouds. Since a substantial amount of interstellar grains is made of siliceous materials, we have studied the infrared…
State-of-the-art JWST observations are unveiling unprecedented views into the atmospheres of substellar objects in the infrared, further highlighting the importance of clouds. Current forward models struggle to fit the silicate clouds…
We present the first full JWST NIRSpec Prism and MIRI LRS 0.6 - 14 $\mu$m (R ~ 100) spectra and analysis of five ~ 133 Myr L dwarf members of the AB Doradus moving group and one probable $\sim 500$ Myr T dwarf of the Oceanus moving group…
Silicates are an important component of interstellar dust and the structure of these grains -- amorphous versus crystalline -- is sensitive to the local physical conditions. We have studied the infrared spectra of a sample of ultra-luminous…
We present results from a mini-survey of dust spectral features arising in galaxies at redshifts $0.5 < z < 1.2$ in our James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) mid-infrared spectra of physically-unrelated background quasars. We analyze the JWST…
New multi-epoch, mid-infrared (8-13 microns) spectrophotometric observations are presented for 30~late-type stars. The observations were collected over a four year period (1994-1997), permitting an investigation of the mid-infrared spectral…
Analysis of all archival 5--14 micron spectra of field ultracool dwarfs from the Infrared Spectrograph on the Spitzer Space Telescope has shown that absorption by silicates in the 8--11 micron region is seen in most L-type (1300 K to 2200…
Clouds are prevalent in many of the exoplanet atmospheres that have been observed to date. For transiting exoplanets, we know if clouds are present because they mute spectral features and cause wavelength-dependent scattering. While the…
Brown dwarfs are essential probes of stellar and planetary formation, yet their low luminosities pose challenges for detection at large Galactic distances. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), with its unprecedented near-infrared…
The presence of crystalline silicates has been detected in the circumstellar environment of several young stars in the recent past and there is evidence of silicon carbide (SiC) detection in the envelope of pre-main sequence star SVS13. In…
Brown dwarfs -- substellar bodies more massive than planets but not massive enough to initiate the sustained hydrogen fusion that powers self-luminous stars -- are born hot and slowly cool as they age. As they cool below about 2,300 K,…
We present a laboratory study of silicate glasses of astrophysically relevant compositions including olivines, pyroxenes and melilites. With emphasis on the classic Si-O stretching feature near 10 microns, we compare infrared spectra of our…