Kelu-1: A Free-floating Brown Dwarf in the Solar Neighborhood

Details Kelu-1: A Free-floating Brown Dwarf in the Solar Neighborhood Kelu-1: A Free-floating Brown Dwarf in the Solar Neighborhood

Dec 1997

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1997apj...491l.107r&link_type=abstract

Astrophysical Journal Letters v.491, p.L107

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

132

Stars: Low-Mass, Stars: Fundamental Parameters, Stars: Atmospheres

Scientific paper

We present the discovery of a field brown dwarf, Kelu-1. The object has a peculiar optical spectrum that, in spite of its extremely red color, shows no sign of the TiO and VO absorption bands typical of cool, low-mass stars. The optical spectrum does show the Li I lambda 6708 absorption line and H alpha in emission. The infrared spectrum of Kelu-1 has strong H2O absorption and also shows the effect of pressure-induced H2 opacity. Kelu-1 was discovered through its large proper motion of 0."35 yr-1, with position angle theta =265^° . A distance of ~10 pc is estimated astrometrically for the object, which implies absolute magnitudes of MV~22 and MK~12 . Comparison of the observed energy distribution of Kelu-1 to synthetic spectra generated by atmosphere models of Allard et al., and structural and evolutionary models of Chabrier & Baraffe, implies that the object has T_{{eff}}=1900+/-100 K and a mass below 0.075 M/Msolar .

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