Related papers: The Galactic disk mass-budget : II. Brown dwarf ma…
We present an analytical method for constraining the substellar initial mass function in globular clusters, based on the observed frequency of transit events. Globular clusters typically have very high stellar densities where close…
We present a simple statistical analysis of recent numerical simulations exploring the correlation between the core mass function obtained from the fragmentation of a molecular cloud and the stellar mass function which forms from these…
Brown dwarfs form the key, yet poorly understood, link between stellar and planetary astrophysics. These objects offer unique tests of Galactic structure, but observational limitations have inhibited their large-scale analysis to date.…
We report on new measurements of the luminosity function (LF) and mass function (MF) of field low-mass dwarfs derived from Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 6 (DR6) photometry. The analysis incorporates ~15 million low-mass stars…
The initial mass function (IMF) is a cornerstone of star formation studies, yet its universality remains debated. We investigate the IMF in the young massive cluster RCW 36, located in the Vela Molecular Ridge and comparable to the Orion…
We suggest that low-mass hydrogen-burning stars like the Sun should sometimes form with massive extended discs; and we show, by means of radiation hydrodynamic simulations, that the outer parts of such discs (R>100 AU) are likely to…
The observed similarities between the mass function of prestellar cores (CMF) and the stellar initial mass function (IMF) have led to the suggestion that the IMF is already largely determined in the gas phase. However, theoretical arguments…
We conducted a search for brown dwarf candidates in a James Webb Space Telescope deep field around A2744 to investigate the space density of these objects at kiloparsec distances. Our methodology employed an initial selection based on…
We investigate the effects of dark matter annihilation on objects with masses close to the sub-stellar limit, finding that the minimum mass for stable hydrogen burning is larger than the $\sim0.075 M_\odot $ value predicted in the Standard…
Although many models have been proposed, the physical mechanisms responsible for the formation of low-mass brown dwarfs are poorly understood. The multiplicity properties and minimum mass of the brown-dwarf mass function provide critical…
Understanding demographic properties of planet populations and multiple star systems constrains theories of planet and star formation. Surveys for very low-mass companions to M-A type stars detect brown dwarfs from multiple star formation…
In order to improve our understanding of substellar formation, we have performed a compositional and structural study of a brown dwarf disk. We present the result of photometric, spectroscopic and imaging observations of 2MASS…
We report the complete photometric results from our Herschel study which is the first comprehensive program to search for far-infrared emission from cold dust around young brown dwarfs. We surveyed 50 fields containing 51 known or suspected…
We present a luminosity function (LF) for lower main sequence stars in the Galactic bulge near (l,b)=(0,-6) to J=24, corresponding to M_J~9.3. This LF is derived from HST + NICMOS observations with the F110W and F160W filters. The main…
We present synthetic spectra for circumstellar disks that are heated by radiation from a central brown dwarf. Under the assumption of vertical hydrostatic equilibrium, our models yield scaleheights for brown dwarf disks in excess of three…
Context: The Initial Mass Function (IMF) plays a crucial role on galaxy evolution and its implications on star formation theory make it a milestone for the next decade. It is in the intermediate and high mass ranges where the uncertainties…
The suggestion that roughly half the mass of the galactic halo might be in the form of white dwarfs, together with the limits on the infrared background light and on the initial metallicity of the galactic disk, would set strong constraints…
We review the statistical properties of stars and brown dwarfs obtained from the first hydrodynamical simulation of star cluster formation to produce more than a thousand stars and brown dwarfs while simultaneously resolving the lowest mass…
We present preliminary trigonometric parallaxes of 184 late-T and Y dwarfs using observations from Spitzer (143), USNO (18), NTT (14), and UKIRT (9). To complete the 20-pc census of $\ge$T6 dwarfs, we combine these measurements with…
The origin of brown dwarfs (BDs) is still an unsolved mystery. While the standard model describes the formation of BDs and stars in a similar way recent data on the multiplicity properties of stars and BDs show them to have different binary…