Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Dec 1992
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1992aas...181.2803p&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, 181st AAS Meeting, #28.03; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 24, p.1164
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
We describe a method for finding substellar mass self-gravitating clumps (``proto-brown dwarfs'') in nearby molecular clouds, using mm-wave telescopes. This method represents a novel approach for proving the existence of brown dwarfs and, for the nearest molecular clouds, has a greater mass sensitivity than ``traditional'' methods. We present results of a search for proto-brown dwarfs in high galactic latitude molecular clouds whose average distance is 100 pc. The clouds have relatively low densities (n(H_2) <~ 10(4) cm(3) ) and are apparently not forming stars. We find little evidence for self-gravititating objects of any mass in them, although there are clearly clumps with masses as low as 5 MJupiter. The search for proto-brown dwarfs is being expanded to include known star-forming regions in the Ophiuchus and Taurus complexes. We discuss some of the observational difficulties encountered and their solutions. The results in Ophiuchus and Taurus will tightly constrain the functional form of the stellar initial mass function (IMF) at very low masses regardless of whether or not any proto-brown dwarfs are found.
Blitz Leo
Pound Marc William
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