Discovery of a Nearby Young Brown Dwarf Disk
- Homer L. Dodge Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Oklahoma, 440 W. Brooks Street, Norman, OK 73019 (United States)
- NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Exoplanets and Stellar Astrophysics Laboratory, Code 667, Greenbelt, MD 20771 (United States)
- MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139 (United States)
- American Museum of Natural History, 200 Central Park West, New York, NY 10024 (United States)
- Institut de Recherche sur les Exoplanètes, Université de Montréal, Pavillon Roger-Gaudry, PO Box 6128 Centre-Ville STN, Montreal QC H3C 3J7 (Canada)
- NSF’s National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory, 950 N. Cherry Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85719 (United States)
- School of Earth and Space Exploration, Arizona State University, 781 Terrace Mall, Tempe, AZ 85287 (United States)
- Department of Physics, Emory University, 201 Dowman Drive, Atlanta, GA 30322 (United States)
- Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218 (United States)
- Physics Department, Western Illinois University, 1 University Circle, Macomb, IL 61455 (United States)
- Disk Detective Citizen Scientist (United States)
We report the discovery of the youngest brown dwarf with a disk at 102 pc from the Sun, WISEA J120037.79−784508.3 (W1200−7845), via the Disk Detective citizen science project. We establish that W1200−7845 is located in the 3.7{sub −1.4}{sup +4.6} Myr old ε Cha association. Its spectral energy distribution (SED) exhibits clear evidence of an infrared (IR) excess, indicative of the presence of a warm circumstellar disk. Modeling this warm disk, we find the data are best fit using a power-law description with a slope α = −0.94, which suggests that it is a young, Class II type disk. Using a single blackbody disk fit, we find T{sub eff,disk}=521 K and L{sub IR}/L{sub ∗}=0.14. The near-IR spectrum of W1200−7845 matches a spectral type of M6.0 γ ± 0.5, which corresponds to a low surface gravity object, and lacks distinctive signatures of strong Paβ or Brγ accretion. Both our SED fitting and spectral analysis indicate that the source is cool (T {sub eff} = 2784–2850 K), with a mass of 42–58 M {sub Jup}, well within the brown dwarf regime. The proximity of this young brown dwarf disk makes the system an ideal benchmark for investigating the formation and early evolution of brown dwarfs.
- OSTI ID:
- 23013369
- Journal Information:
- Astronomical Journal (New York, N.Y. Online), Vol. 160, Issue 4; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 1538-3881
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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