Physics – Optics
Scientific paper
May 2009
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009aas...21421105c&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #214, #211.05; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 41, p.717
Physics
Optics
Scientific paper
Adaptive optics (AO) has been a key technology for understanding the nature of very low mass (VLM) and brown dwarf binaries. In just the last 5 years we have learned that such binaries are 3 times rarer and much tighter (a<20 AU) than their higher mass counterparts. However, in the case of very young (<10 Myr) brown dwarf binaries the separations can be much wider (a 100 AU) then older field systems. Such observations place strong constraints on the formation and dynamical evolution of brown dwarf binaries. Moreover, the measurement of dynamical masses for these binaries (often with AO) place the strongest constraints on the complex mass-luminosity-age models for these systems. I will show that in the case of 0.1-0.03 Msun companions formed by gravitational fragmentation there is reasonable agreement between observed AO IFU spectra and dynamical masses with the theoretical "hot-start" atmospheric models. Yet there is still much uncertainty in the exact mechanism by which nature produces (and then dynamically sculpts) the brown dwarf binary population.
This research is supported by a NSF CAREER award and the NASA Origins of Solar Systems Program.
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