Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
May 2011
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011sptz.prop80190k&link_type=abstract
Spitzer Proposal ID #80190
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
The Pleiades is a landmark open cluster that has had a profound impact on our understanding of stellar astronomy. The stellar member census of the Pleiades has been intensely studied since the beginnings of modern astronomy, and the high-mass substellar membership has been filled in by a number of advances over the past decade. However, the lowest-mass brown dwarfs have remained elusive. We propose to search for these cool, faint brown dwarfs using a high-precision proper motion survey with Spitzer. This survey exploits archival first-epoch astrometry from shortly after launch, in combination with our proposed observations in Cycle 8, to measure proper motions with a precision of 2--3 mas at 30 M_Jup and ~12 mas even at masses as low as 10 M_Jup. This type of study has previously been infeasible, but as we describe, our new characterization of the IRAC optical distortion improves the astrometric noise floor from 150 mas down to 10--20 mas. Our new census will reveal the shape and slope of the bottom of the Pleiades mass function and establish a new set of benchmark brown dwarfs in an unexplored range of mass and age that is directly comparable to exoplanets like HR 8799bcde. In summary, this novel and efficient survey will cast new light on the last unidentified members in the prototype for all young open clusters.
Kraus Adam
Liu Michael
Stauffer John
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