Large Ampltiude, Quasi-Periodic Variability of a Cool Brown Dwarf

Details Large Ampltiude, Quasi-Periodic Variability of a Cool Brown Dwarf Large Ampltiude, Quasi-Periodic Variability of a Cool Brown Dwarf

May 2011

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011aas...21812101r&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #218, #121.01; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 43, 2011

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

We present continuous photometric monitoring of an early T-type brown dwarf in the near-infrared. Observations over 7 nights indicate that the target is variable with a period of 7.7 hours and peak-to-peak amplitudes of up to 30% in the J band, the largest ever reported for a field brown dwarf. The evolving nature of the light curve, which displays phase changes in multi-epoch observations over months, suggests that atmospheric surface features --most likely heterogeneous clouds---are responsible. We also discuss our attempts to use combinations of current 1D 'cloudy' and 'clear' model atmospheres to reproduce simultaneously both the J, H, Ks light curve amplitudes as well as the target's observed spectral energy distribution. This object joins the T2.5 dwarf SIMP0136 discovered by Artigau and coworkers as the second L/T transition brown dwarf to display large-amplitude variability on rotational timescales, suggesting that the fragmentation of dust clouds at the L/T transition may contribute to the abrupt decline in condensate opacity and J-band brightening observed to occur over this regime. Furthermore, the presence of discrete, long-lived cloud features on these objects offers the potential to map evolving weather patterns, and hence extend studies of atmospheric circulation beyond our solar system, to a substellar mass regime never before probed.

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