Bibcode
Knight, Cynthia; Goldman, B.; Stephens, D.; Pitann, J.; Zapatero Osorio, M.; Bejar, V. S. B.; Henning, T.
Referencia bibliográfica
American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #215, #606.01; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 36, p.1129
Advertised on:
1
2010
Número de citas
0
Número de citas referidas
0
Descripción
L-type brown dwarfs (Teff = 1400-2100K) are known for their dusty
photospheres. Brown dwarfs may have asymmetric surfaces arising from
rotationally-induced flattening or large-scale cloud cover and
patchiness. This broken symmetry may prevent polarization by
dust-scattering to to cancel out, resulting in a non-zero polarization.
Therefore, studying polarization provides useful insights into surface
heterogeneities in brown dwarfs. Zapatero Osorio et
al.(2005),Ménard et al. (2002), and Goldman et al. (2009) report
that some brown dwarfs have small polarization degrees on the order of
0.1%. Their results also suggest variability. This project aims to
confirm past results through investigating previous targets as well as
expanding the sample size. We also aim to search for variability in the
ultra-cool dwarfs in our survey. We used the CAFOS camera on the 2.2
meter telescope at the Calar Alto Observatory in Spain. In this poster,
we present the data and analysis from 15 nights of observation of 22
brown dwarfs.