Parallaxes of Five L Dwarfs with a Robotic Telescope

Wang, Y.; Jones, H. R. A.; Smart, R. L.; Marocco, F.; Pinfield, D. J.; Shao, Z.; Steele, I. A.; Zhang, Z H..; Andrei, A. H.; Burgasser, A. J.; Cruz, K. L.; Yu, J.; Clarke, J. R. A.; Leigh, C. J.; Sozzetti, A.; Murray, D. N.; Burningham, B.
Bibliographical reference

Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, Volume 126, issue 935, pp.15-26

Advertised on:
1
2014
Number of authors
17
IAC number of authors
0
Citations
9
Refereed citations
5
Description
We report the parallax and proper motion of five L dwarfs obtained with observations from the robotic Liverpool Telescope. Our derived proper motions are consistent with published values and have considerably smaller errors. Based on our spectral type versus absolute magnitude diagram, we do not find any evidence for binaries among our sample--or, at least no comparable mass binaries. Their space velocities locate them within the thin disk, and based on the model comparisons, they have solar-like abundances. For all five objects, we derived effective temperature, luminosity, radius, gravity, and mass from an evolutionary model (CBA00) and our measured parallax; moreover, we derived their effective temperature by integrating observed optical and near-infrared spectra and model spectra (BSH06 or BT-Dusty) at longer wavelengths to obtain bolometric flux using the classical Stefan-Boltzmann law. Generally, the three temperatures for one object derived using two different methods with three models are consistent, although at lower temperature (e.g., for L4) the differences among the three temperatures are slightly larger than those at higher temperature (e.g., for L1).
Related projects
Discovery of a system of super-Earths orbiting the star HD 176986 with about 5.7 and 9.2 Earth masses.
Very Low Mass Stars, Brown Dwarfs and Planets
Our goal is to study the processes that lead to the formation of low mass stars, brown dwarfs and planets and to characterize the physical properties of these objects in various evolutionary stages. Low mass stars and brown dwarfs are likely the most numerous type of objects in our Galaxy but due to their low intrinsic luminosity they are not so
Rafael
Rebolo López