Discovery of a Wide Binary Brown Dwarf Born in Isolation

Details Discovery of a Wide Binary Brown Dwarf Born in Isolation Discovery of a Wide Binary Brown Dwarf Born in Isolation

2009-02-03

arxiv.org/abs/0902.0425v2

Astrophys. J.691:1265-1274, 2009

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

Galaxy Astrophysics

revised version with Erratum (in press)

Scientific paper

10.1088/0004-637X/691/2/1265

During a survey for stars with disks in the Taurus star-forming region using the Spitzer Space Telescope, we have discovered a pair of young brown dwarfs, FU Tau A and B, in the Barnard 215 dark cloud. They have a projected angular separation of 5.7", corresponding to 800 AU at the distance of Taurus. To assess the nature of these two objects, we have obtained spectra of them and have constructed their spectral energy distributions. Both sources are young (~1 Myr) according to their Halpha emission, gravity-sensitive spectral features, and mid-IR excess emission. The proper motion of FU Tau A provides additional evidence of its membership in Taurus. We measure spectral types of M7.25 and M9.25 for FU Tau A and B, respectively, which correspond to masses of ~0.05 and ~0.015 M\cdot according to the evolutionary models of Chabrier and Baraffe. FU Tau A is significantly overluminous relative to an isochrone passing through FU Tau B and relative to other members of Taurus near its spectral type, which may indicate that it is an unresolved binary. FU Tau A and B are likely to be components of a binary system based on the low probability (~3x10^-4) that Taurus would produce two unrelated brown dwarfs with a projected separation of a

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