Bibcode
Guirado, J. C.; Azulay, R.; Gauza, B.; Pérez-Torres, M. A.; Rebolo, R.; Climent, J. B.; Zapatero Osorio, M. R.
Bibliographical reference
Astronomy and Astrophysics, Volume 610, id.A23, 6 pp.
Advertised on:
2
2018
Journal
Citations
13
Refereed citations
13
Description
Aim. With the purpose of investigating the radio emission of new
ultracool objects, we carried out a targeted search in the recently
discovered system VHS J125601.92-125723.9 (hereafter VHS 1256-1257);
this system is composed by an equal-mass M7.5 binary and a L7 low-mass
substellar object located at only 15.8 pc. Methods: We observed
in phase-reference mode the system VHS 1256-1257 with the Karl G. Jansky
Very Large Array at X band and L band and with the European VLBI Network
at L band in several epochs during 2015 and 2016. Results: We
discovered radio emission at X band spatially coincident with the
equal-mass M7.5 binary with a flux density of 60 μJy. We determined a
spectral index α = ‑1.1 ± 0.3 between 8 and 12 GHz,
suggesting that non-thermal, optically thin, synchrotron, or
gyrosynchrotron radiation is responsible for the observed radio
emission. Interestingly, no signal is seen at L band where we set a
3σ upper limit of 20 μJy. This might be explained by strong
variability of the binary or self-absorption at this frequency. By
adopting the latter scenario and gyrosynchrotron radiation, we constrain
the turnover frequency to be in the interval 5-8.5 GHz, from which we
infer the presence of kG-intense magnetic fields in the M7.5 binary. Our
data impose a 3σ upper bound to the radio flux density of the L7
object of 9 μJy at 10 GHz.