Observations of Heterogeneous Clouds and Weather in Substellar Atmospheres

Details Observations of Heterogeneous Clouds and Weather in Substellar Atmospheres Observations of Heterogeneous Clouds and Weather in Substellar Atmospheres

Sep 2011

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011ess.....2.4025r&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, ESS meeting #2, #40.25

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

Atmospheres of cool brown dwarfs and gas giant planets share important similarities such as low temperatures, a rich molecular chemistry, condensate clouds, and rapid rotation. The combination of condensate clouds and rapid rotation has long motivated searches for weather phenomena on cool brown dwarfs. However, until recently, observations have failed to show compelling evidence for heterogeneous cloud features or giant storms that are commonplace within our own Solar System.
Here we describe the most comprehensive variability survey of cool brown dwarfs to date. Our J-band search has targeted 50 isolated brown dwarfs over 60 nights at the DuPont 2.5-m telescope at Las Campanas with high cadence, high-precision photometric sequences, and is complemented by follow-up observations in additional bands in order to characterize the nature of the variations. Our data suggest that heterogeneous cloud features are responsible for variability (in one case as large as 30%) in a subset of partially cloudy brown dwarfs. Our results highlight the limitations of current 1D model atmospheres for brown dwarfs and extrasolar giant planets, and can be used to inform higher-dimensional modeling. In addition, variable brown dwarfs may provide a means of mapping winds and weather in ultracool atmospheres, thereby providing an empirical anchor for atmospheric circulation models in a new (non-irradiated, higher mass, rapidly rotating) physical regime.

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