We present the results from a spectroscopic study of 1080 nearby active M dwarfs, selected by correlating the Two Micron All Sky Survey and ROSAT catalogs. We have derived the spectral types and ...estimated distances for all of our stars. The spectral types range between K5 and M6. Nearly half of our stars lie within 50 pc. We have measured the equivalent width of the Ha emission line. Our targets show an increase in chromospheric activity from early to midspectral types, with a peak in activity around M5. Using the count rate and hardness ratios obtained from the ROSAT catalog, we have derived the X-ray luminosities. Our stars display a 'saturation-type' relation between the chromospheric and coronal activity. The relation is such that log LX/Lbol remains 'saturated' at a value of approximately -3 for varying Ha equivalent width. We have found 568 matches in the USNO-B catalog and have derived the tangential velocities for these stars. There is a slight trend of decreasing chromospheric activity with age, such that the stars with higher vtan have lower Ha equivalent widths. The coronal emission, however, remains saturated at a value of log LX/Lbol ~ -3 for varying tangential velocities, suggesting that the coronal activity remains saturated with age. We do not find any break in the saturation-type relation at the spectral type at which stars become fully convective (~M3.5). Most of the stars in our sample show more coronal emission than the dMe stars in the Hyades and Praesepe and have vtan < 40 km s-1, suggesting a young population.
ABSTRACT We present the results of a near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopic follow-up survey of 182 M4-L7 low-mass stars and brown dwarfs (BDs) from the BANYAN All-Sky Survey (BASS) for candidate members ...of nearby, young moving groups (YMGs). We confirm signs of low gravity for 42 new BD discoveries with estimated masses between 8 and 75 and identify previously unrecognized signs of low gravity for 24 known BDs. We refine the fraction of low-gravity dwarfs in the high-probability BASS sample to ∼82%. We use this unique sample of 66 young BDs, supplemented with 22 young BDs from the literature, to construct new empirical NIR absolute magnitude and color sequences for low-gravity BDs. We show that low-resolution NIR spectroscopy alone cannot differentiate between the ages of YMGs younger than ∼120 Myr, and that the BT-Settl atmosphere models do not reproduce well the dust clouds in field or low-gravity L-type dwarfs. We obtain a spectroscopic confirmation of low gravity for 2MASS J14252798-3650229, which is a new ∼27 , L4 γ bona fide member of AB Doradus. We identify a total of 19 new low-gravity candidate members of YMGs with estimated masses below 13 , 7 of which have kinematically estimated distances within 40 pc. These objects will be valuable benchmarks for a detailed atmospheric characterization of planetary-mass objects with the next generation of instruments. We find 16 strong candidate members of the Tucana-Horologium association with estimated masses between 12.5 and 14 , a regime where our study was particularly sensitive. This would indicate that for this association there is at least one isolated object in this mass range for every main-sequence stellar member, a number significantly higher than expected based on standard log-normal initial mass function, however, in the absence of radial velocity and parallax measurements for all of them, it is likely that this over-density is caused by a number of young interlopers from other associations.
We propose a revision of the system developed by Lépine et al. for spectroscopic M-subdwarf classification. Based on an analysis of subdwarf spectra and templates from Savcheva et al., we show that ...the CaH1 feature originally proposed by Gizis is important in selecting reliable cool subdwarf spectra. This index should be used in combination with the TiO5, CaH2+CaH3 relation provided by Lépine et al. to avoid misclassification results. In the new system, the dwarf-subdwarf separators are first derived from a sample of more than 80,000 M dwarfs and a "labeled" subdwarf subsample, and these objects are all visually identified from their optical spectra. Based on these two samples, we refit the initial TiO5, CaH1 relation and propose a new CaOH, CaH1 relation supplementing the TiO5, CaH1 relation to reduce the impact of uncertainty in flux calibration on classification accuracy. In addition, we recalibrate the ζTiO/CaH parameter defined in Lépine et al. to enable its successful application to Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST) spectra. Using this new system, we select candidates from LAMOST Data Release 4 and finally identify a set of 2791 new M-subdwarf stars, covering the spectral sequence from type M0 to M7. This sample contains a large number of objects located at low Galactic latitudes, especially in the Galactic anti-center direction, expanding beyond previously published halo- and thick disk-dominated samples. Besides, we detect magnetic activity in 141 objects. We present a catalog for this M-subdwarf sample, including radial velocities, spectral indices and errors, and activity flags, with a compilation of external data (photometric and Gaia Data Release 2 astrometric parameters). The catalog is provided online, and the spectra can be retrieved from the LAMOST Data Release web portal.
We present the first results of our ongoing project conducting simultaneous multiwavelength observations of flares on nearby active M dwarfs. We acquired data of the nearby dM3.5e star EV Lac using ...five different observatories: NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory (Swift), NASA's Neutron Interior Composition Explorer (NICER), the University of Hawaii 2.2-meter telescope (UH88), and the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope (LCOGT) Network. During the ∼25 days of TESS observations, we acquired three simultaneous UV/X-ray observations using Swift that total ∼18 ks, 21 simultaneous epochs totaling ∼98 ks of X-ray data using NICER, one observation (∼3 hr) with UH88, and one observation (∼3 hr) with LCOGT. We identified 56 flares in the TESS light curve with estimated energies in the range log E(T) (erg) = (30.5–33.2), nine flares in the Swift UVM2 light curve with estimated energies in the range log E(UV) (erg) = (29.3–31.1), 14 flares in the NICER light curve with estimated minimum energies in the range log E(N) (erg) = (30.5–32.3), and 1 flare in the LCOGT light curve with log E(L) (erg) = 31.6. We find that the flare frequency distributions (FFDs) of TESS and NICER flares have comparable slopes, β(T) = −0.67 ± 0.09 and β(N) = − 0.65 ± 0.19, and the FFD of UVOT flares has a shallower slope (β(U) = −0.38 ± 0.13). Furthermore, we do not find conclusive evidence for either the first ionization potential (FIP) or the inverse FIP effect during coronal flares on EV Lac.
LSST Survey Strategies and Brown Dwarf Parallaxes Gizis, John E.; Yoachim, Peter; Jones, R. Lynne ...
The Astrophysical journal. Supplement series,
12/2022, Letnik:
263, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Abstract
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) has the potential to measure parallaxes for thousands of nearby ultracool dwarfs, enabling improved measurements of the ...brown dwarf luminosity function. We develop a simple model to estimate the number of L dwarfs and T dwarfs with parallaxes with signal-to-noise ratio greater than 10 in the baseline LSST survey. High-quality astrometry imposes scheduling constraints. We assess different possible observing strategies using quantitative metrics and make recommendations as part of the LSST community input process. We find that the new substellar parallax sample will represent a nearly order-of-magnitude increase on existing samples, with ∼50–100 objects per spectral type bin for late-L to mid-T dwarfs. The sample size is robust (±5% or less) against most survey strategy changes under consideration, although we do identify areas of tension with other uses of twilight time that could have a larger impact.
We report the white light flare rates for 10 ultracool dwarfs using Kepler K2 short-cadence data. Among our sample stars, two have spectral type M6, three are M7, three are M8, and two are L0. Most ...of our targets are old low-mass stars. We identify a total of 283 flares in all of the stars in our sample, with Kepler energies in the range log EKp ∼ (29-33.5) erg. Using the maximum-likelihood method of line fitting, we find that the flare frequency distribution (FFD) for each star in our sample follows a power law with slope − in the range −(1.3-2.0). We find that cooler objects tend to have shallower slopes. For some of our targets, the FFD follows either a broken power law, or a power law with an exponential cutoff. For the L0 dwarf 2MASS J12321827-0951502, we find a very shallow slope (− = −1.3) in the Kepler energy range (0.82-130) × 1030 erg: this L0 dwarf has flare rates which are comparable to those of high-energy flares in stars of earlier spectral types. In addition, we report photometry of two superflares: one on the L0 dwarf 2MASS J12321827-0951502 and another on the M7 dwarf 2MASS J08352366+1029318. In the case of 2MASS J12321827-0951502, we report a flare brightening by a factor of ∼144 relative to the quiescent photospheric level. Likewise, for 2MASS J08352366+1029318, we report a flare brightening by a factor of ∼60 relative to the quiescent photospheric level. These two superflares have bolometric (ultraviolet/optical/infrared) energies 3.6 × 1033 erg and 8.9 × 1033 erg respectively, while the full width half maximum timescales are very short, ∼2 min. We find that the M8 star TRAPPIST-1 is more active than the M8.5 dwarf 2M03264453+1919309, but less active than another M8 dwarf (2M12215066-0843197).
We use Kepler K2 Campaign 4 short-cadence (one-minute) photometry to measure white light flares in the young, moving group brown dwarfs 2MASS J03350208+2342356 (2M0335+23) and 2MASS J03552337+1133437 ...(2M0355+11), and report on long-cadence (thirty-minute) photometry of a superflare in the Pleiades M8 brown dwarf CFHT-PL-17. The rotation period (5.24 hr) and projected rotational velocity (45 km s−1) confirm 2M0335+23 is inflated ( ) as predicted for a , 24 Myr old brown dwarf βPic moving group member. We detect 22 white light flares on 2M0335+23. The flare frequency distribution follows a power-law distribution with slope over the range 1031 to 1033 erg. This slope is similar to that observed in the Sun and warmer flare stars, and is consistent with lower-energy flares in previous work on M6-M8 very-low-mass stars; taking the two data sets together, the flare frequency distribution for ultracool dwarfs is a power law over 4.3 orders of magnitude. The superflare ( erg) on CFHT-PL-17 shows higher-energy flares are possible. We detect no flares down to a limit of erg in the nearby L5γ AB Dor moving group brown dwarf 2M0355+11, consistent with the view that fast magnetic reconnection is suppressed in cool atmospheres. We discuss two multi-peaked flares observed in 2M0335+23, and argue that these complex flares can be understood as sympathetic flares, in which fast-mode magnetohydrodynamic waves similar to extreme-ultraviolet waves in the Sun trigger magnetic reconnection in different active regions.
Multiplicity is a key statistic for understanding the formation of very low mass (VLM) stars and brown dwarfs. Currently, the separation distribution of VLM binaries remains poorly constrained at ...small separations < or =, slant1 AU), leading to uncertainty in the overall binary fraction. We approach this problem by searching for late-M/early-L plus T dwarf spectral binaries whose combined light spectra exhibit distinct peculiarities, allowing for separation-independent identification. We define a set of spectral indices designed to identify these systems, and we use a spectral template fitting method to confirm and characterize spectral binary candidates from a library of 815 spectra from the SpeX Prism Spectral Libraries. We present 11 new binary candidates, confirm 3 previously reported candidates, and rule out 2 previously identified candidates, all with primary and secondary spectral types in the range M7-L7 and T1-T8, respectively. We find that subdwarfs and blue L dwarfs are the primary contaminants in our sample and propose a method for segregating these sources. If confirmed by follow-up observations, these systems may add to the growing list of tight separation binaries, whose orbital properties may yield further insight into brown dwarf formation scenarios.
Young stars in the solar neighborhood serve as nearby probes of stellar evolution and represent promising targets to directly image self-luminous giant planets. We have carried out an all-sky search ...for late-type ( K7-M5) stars within 100 pc selected primarily on the basis of activity indicators from the Galaxy Evolution Explorer and ROSAT. Approximately 2000 active and potentially young stars are identified, of which we have followed up over 600 with low-resolution optical spectroscopy and over 1000 with diffraction-limited imaging using Robo-AO at the Palomar 1.5 m telescope. Strong lithium is present in 58 stars, implying ages spanning 10-200 Myr. Most of these lithium-rich stars are new or previously known members of young moving groups including TWA, β Pic, Tuc-Hor, Carina, Columba, Argus, AB Dor, Upper Centaurus Lupus, and Lower Centaurus Crux; the rest appear to be young low-mass stars without connections to established kinematic groups. Over 200 close binaries are identified down to 0 2-the vast majority of which are new-and will be valuable for dynamical mass measurements of young stars with continued orbit monitoring in the future.
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