Lithium depletion in the brown dwarf binary GJ 569Bab

Zapatero Osorio, M. R.; Martín, E. L.; Lane, B. F.; Pavlenko, Ya.; Bouy, H.; Baraffe, I.; Basri, G.
Bibliographical reference

Astronomische Nachrichten, Vol.326, Issue 10, p.948-951

Advertised on:
12
2005
Number of authors
7
IAC number of authors
2
Citations
9
Refereed citations
7
Description
GJ 569Bab is the first brown dwarf binary for which the mass of each component has been derived by solving the astrometric and spectroscopic orbit of the pair, i.e., independently of any theoretical assumption. This allows us to test the predictions of the various evolutionary models available in the literature. Particularly interesting are the predictions of lithium depletion for the mass (0.08-0.05 M&sun;) and likely age (300-800 Myr) of the substellar components. High-resolution optical spectra of GJ 569B (the pair is not resolved) obtained with HIRES at the Keck telescope show that there has been significant lithium depletion in both components. We will compare these results to state-of-the-art theoretical calculations.