WISE and Brown Dwarfs

Details WISE and Brown Dwarfs WISE and Brown Dwarfs

May 2009

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009aas...21421703k&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #214, #217.03; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 41, p.724

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

The search for the nearest and coolest brown dwarfs will use WISE's two short-wavelength channels (W1 and W2), which are optimized for brown dwarf detection. W1 samples the methane fundamental absorption band at 3.3 microns, and W2 measures the relatively opacity-free portion of the brown dwarf atmosphere near 4.7 microns. Cool brown dwarfs will thus have very red [W1]-[W2] colors, maximizing our chances of identifying them. Extrapolating preferred mass functions to very low masses and assuming that the star formation rate has been constant over the last 10 Gyr, we can predict the number of brown dwarfs WISE is expected to image. At spectral types later than T7 (Teff > 850K), WISE is expected to find 500 brown dwarfs, which makes WISE uniquely suited among future surveys to measure the low-mass limit of star formation for the first time. This sample will also show whether a new spectral class beyond T, dubbed "Y", is needed at the lowest temperatures. Although the primary six-month WISE mission will cover the entire sky once, WISE should have sufficient cryogen to perform a second, complete pass of the sky. In this case, the identification of nearby brown dwarfs need not rely solely on color selection. Kinematics (proper motion) and geometry (parallax) can also be used to distinguish our closest brown dwarf neighbors, one of which may lie less distant than Proxima Centauri or even fall within our own Oort Cloud.

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