Related papers: Brown dwarf formation by binary disruption
Searches for companions of brown dwarfs by direct imaging mainly probe orbital separations > 3-10 AU. On the other hand, previous radial velocity surveys of brown dwarfs are mainly sensitive to separations smaller than 0.6 AU. It has been…
The formation of low-mass protostars and especially of brown dwarfs currently are ``hot topics'' in cool star research. The talks contributed to this splinter session discussed how low in mass and how low in luminosity objects might exist,…
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,…
The discovery that many trans-neptunian objects exist in pairs, or binaries, is proving invaluable for shedding light on the formation, evolution and structure of the outer Solar system. Based on recent systematic searches it has been…
We have performed a survey for substellar companions to young brown dwarfs in the Taurus star-forming region using the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 on board the Hubble Space Telescope. In these data, we have discovered a candidate…
The origin of highly-magnetized white dwarfs has remained a mystery since their initial discovery. Recent observations indicate that the formation of high-field magnetic white dwarfs is intimately related to strong binary interactions…
Surveys of young star-forming regions have discovered a growing population of planetary-mass (<13 M_Jup) companions around young stars. There is an ongoing debate as to whether these companions formed like planets (that is, from the…
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 the stellar and substellar mass function of the open cluster IC2391, plus its radial dependence, and use this to put constraints on the formation mechanism of brown dwarfs. Our multiband optical and infrared photometric survey…
The birth of stars involves not only accretion but also, counter-intuitively, the expulsion of matter in the form of highly supersonic outflows. Although this phenomenon has been seen in young stars, a fundamental question is whether it…
Binary stars produce an array of dramatic astrophysical phenomena. They allow us to probe stellar structure, nuclear physics, and gravitational wave physics. They also produce the powerful supernovae that allow us to measure the scale of…
We present a calculation of protostellar disk formation and evolution in which gaseous clumps (essentially, the first Larson cores formed via disk fragmentation) are ejected from the disk during the early stage of evolution. This is a…
We characterize the infall rate onto protostellar systems forming in self-gravitating radiation-hydrodynamic simulations. Using two dimensionless parameters to determine disks' susceptability to gravitational fragmentation, we infer limits…
Since their initial discovery, the origin of isolated white dwarfs (WDs) with magnetic fields in excess of $\sim$1 MG has remained a mystery. Recently, the formation of these high-field magnetic WDs has been observationally linked to strong…
Dust formation in brown dwarf atmospheres is studied by utilising a model for driven turbulence in the mesoscopic scale regime. We apply a pseudo-spectral method where waves are created and superimposed within a limited wavenumber interval.…
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…
Brown dwarf formation and star formation efficiency are studied using a nested grid simulation that covers five orders of magnitude in spatial scale (10^4 - 0.1AU). Starting with a rotating magnetized compact cloud with a mass of 0.22…
In the standard Lambda-CDM paradigm, dwarf galaxies are expected to be dark-matter-rich, as baryonic feedback is thought to quickly drive gas out of their shallow potential wells and quench star formation at early epochs. Recent…
The planet formation process and subsequent planet migration may lead to configurations resulting in strong dynamical interactions among the various planets. Well-studied possible outcomes include collisions between planets, scattering…
We surveyed thirteen very low mass (VLM; M < 0.2 M_sun) objects in the Taurus star-forming region using near-infrared diffraction-limited imaging techniques on the W.M. Keck I 10 m telescope. Of these thirteen, five were found to be binary,…