Related papers: L Dwarfs and the Substellar Mass Function
Masses are a fundamental parameter, but they are not well known for most hot subdwarfs. In general, the mass of a hot subdwarf is derived with asteroseismology or dynamical methods, for which it is often difficult to obtain the necessary…
We present the colors and activity of ultracool (M7-L8) dwarfs from the Tenth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). We combine previous samples of SDSS M and L dwarfs with new data obtained from the Baryon Oscillation Sky…
We have identified two late M dwarfs within 10 parsecs of the Sun, by cross-correlating the Luyten NLTT catalogue of stars with proper motions larger than 0.18 arcsec/yr, with objects lacking optical identification in the 2MASS data base.…
We report on our analysis of HST/NICMOS snapshot high resolution images of 255 stars in 201 systems within ~10 parsecs of the Sun. Photometry was obtained through filters F110W, F180M, F207M, and F222M using NICMOS Camera 2. These filters…
We present mass models for the dark matter component of seven dwarf galaxies taken from "The HI Nearby Galaxy Survey" (THINGS) and compare these with those from numerical Lambda Cold Dark Matter (LCDM) simulations. The THINGS…
We investigate whether nearby white dwarfs (WDs) can constrain dark matter (DM) interactions with ordinary matter. As experimental sensitivity improves, driven by the Gaia mission, the sample volume of nearby WDs has been increasing over…
M dwarfs are the most abundant stars in the Solar Neighborhood and they are prime targets for searching for rocky planets in habitable zones. Consequently, a detailed characterization of these stars is in demand. The spectral sub-type is…
Isolated brown dwarfs provide remarkable laboratories for understanding atmospheric physics in the low-irradiation regime, and can be observed more precisely than exoplanets. As such, they provide a glimpse into the future of high-SNR…
We present predictions for the surface density of ultracool dwarfs (with spectral types M8-T8) for a host of deep fields that are likely to be observed with the James Webb Space Telescope. Based on simple thin and thick/thin disk…
Modern sky surveys, such as the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and the Two-Micron All Sky Survey, have revolutionized the study of low-mass stars. With millions of photometric and spectroscopic observations, intrinsic stellar properties can be…
We have used archival infrared images obtained with the Wide Field Camera 3 on board the Hubble Space Telescope to constrain the initial mass function of low-mass stars and brown dwarfs in the W3 star-forming region. The images cover 438…
Condensate clouds are a salient feature of L dwarf atmospheres, but have been assumed to play little role in shaping the spectra of the coldest T-type brown dwarfs. Here we report evidence of condensate opacity in the near-infrared spectrum…
The mass function of hydrogen-rich atmosphere white dwarfs has been frequently found to reveal a distinctive high-mass excess near 1Msun. However, a significant excess of massive white dwarfs has not been detected in the mass function of…
Y dwarfs provide a unique opportunity to study free-floating objects with masses $<$30 M$_{Jup}$ and atmospheric temperatures approaching those of known Jupiter-like exoplanets. Obtaining distances to these objects is an essential step…
Ultra-cool T- (T$_{\mathrm{eff}} \approx$ 500 - 1200 K) and Y-dwarfs (T$_{\mathrm{eff}}$ $\lessapprox 500$ K) have historically been found only a few hundred parsecs from the Sun. The sensitivity and wavelength coverage of the NIRCam…
Recent observations of nearby star forming regions have offered evidence that young brown dwarfs undergo a period of mass accretion analogous to the T Tauri phase observed in young stars. Brown dwarf analogs to stellar protostars, however,…
A recent model for the stellar initial mass function (IMF), in which the stellar masses are randomly sampled down to the thermal Jeans mass from hierarchically structured pre-stellar clouds, predicts that regions of ultra-cold CO gas, such…
M dwarfs are prime targets in the hunt for habitable worlds around other stars. This is due to their abundance as well as their small radii and low masses and temperatures, which facilitate the detection of temperate, rocky planets in orbit…
We study a sample of 257 Galactic disk M dwarfs (8<M_V<18.5) found in images obtained using HST. These include 192 stars in 22 fields imaged with the repaired WFC2 with mean limiting mag I=23.7 and 65 stars in 162 fields imaged with the…
Lithium is an important element for the understanding of ultracool dwarfs because it is lost to fusion at masses above $\sim 68\, M_{\rm J}$. Hence, the presence or absence of atomic Li has served as an indicator of the nearby H-burning…