Related papers: The Galactic disk mass-budget : II. Brown dwarf ma…
Context: The principal mechanism by which brown dwarfs form, and its relation to the formation of higher-mass (i.e. hydrogen-burning) stars, is poorly understood. Aims: We advocate a new model for the formation of brown dwarfs. Methods: In…
Our first aim is to calculate the minimum mass for Primary Fragmentation in a variety of potential star-formation scenarios, i.e. (i) hierarchical fragmentation of a 3-D medium; (ii) one-shot, 2-D fragmentation of a shock-compressed layer;…
We present some results from a systematic survey for disks around spectroscopically identified young brown dwarfs and very low mass stars. We find that ~75% of our sample show intrinsic IR excesses, indicative of circum(sub)stellar disks.…
The combination of a finite time-scale for star formation, rapid early stellar evolution and rapid stellar-dynamical processes imply that the stellar IMF cannot be inferred for any star cluster independently of its age (the Cluster IMF…
We have performed a search for planetary-mass brown dwarfs in the Chamaeleon I star-forming region using proper motions and photometry measured from optical and infrared images from the Spitzer Space Telescope, the Hubble Space Telescope,…
The number of low-mass brown dwarfs and even free floating planetary mass objects in young nearby star-forming regions and associations is continuously increasing, offering the possibility to study the low-mass end of the IMF in greater…
The initial mass function (IMF) for the stars is usually fitted by three straight lines, which means seven parameters. The presence of brown dwarfs (BD) increases to four the straight lines and to nine the parameters. Another common fitting…
Residual-gas expulsion after cluster formation has recently been shown to leave an imprint in the low-mass present-day stellar mass function (PDMF) which allowed the estimation of birth conditions of some Galactic globular clusters (GCs)…
We have identified four brown dwarfs in the Taurus star-forming region. They were first selected from $R$ and $I$ CCD photometry of 2.29 square degrees obtained at the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope. Subsequently, they were recovered in the…
It is estimated that ~60% of all stars (including brown dwarfs) have masses below 0.2Msun. Currently, there is no consensus on how these objects form. I will briefly review the four main theories for the formation of low-mass objects:…
We present the results of a multiband survey for brown dwarfs in the Chamaeleon I dark cloud with the Wide Field Imager (WFI) camera at the ESO/MPG 2.2-m telescope on La Silla (Chile). The survey has revealed a substantial population of…
It has been known for a long time that stellar metallicity plays a significant role in the determination of the ages of the different Galactic stellar populations, when main sequence evolutionary tracks are employed. Here we analyze the…
We report the statistical properties of stars, brown dwarfs and multiple systems obtained from the largest radiation hydrodynamical simulation of star cluster formation to date that resolves masses down to the opacity limit for…
The stellar initial-mass function (IMF) represents a fundamental quantity in astrophysics and cosmology, describing the mass distribution of stars from low to very-high masses. It is intimately linked to a wide variety of topics, including…
We investigate in massive early-type galaxies the variation of their two-dimensional central fraction of dark over total mass and dark matter density as a function of stellar mass, central stellar velocity dispersion, effective radius, and…
It has been shown recently that the dynamical V-band mass-to-light ratios of compact stellar systems with masses from 10^6 to 10^8 Solar masses are not consistent with the predictions from simple stellar population (SSP) models. Top-heavy…
Planets have been detected around a variety of stars, including low-mass objects, such as brown dwarfs. However, such extreme cases are challenging for planet formation models. Recent sub-millimeter observations of disks around brown dwarf…
Direct imaging searches have revealed many very low-mass objects, including a small number of planetary mass objects, as wide-orbit companions to young stars. The formation mechanism of these objects remains uncertain. In this paper we…
The contribution of white dwarfs of the different Galactic populations to the stellar content of our Galaxy is only poorly known. Some authors claim a vast population of halo white dwarfs, which would be in accordance with some…
We present an analysis of the mass distribution in the region of the Galactic bulge, which leads to constraints on the total amount and distribution of Dark Matter (DM) therein. Our results -based on the dynamical measurement of the BRAVA…