We aim at identifying very low-mass isolated planetary-mass member candidates in the nearest OB association to the Sun, Upper Scorpius (145pc; 5-10Myr), to constrain the form and shape of the luminosity function and mass spectrum in this regime. We conducted a deep multi-band (Y=21.2, J=20.5, Z=22.0mag) photometric survey of six square degrees in the central region of Upper Scorpius. We extend the current sequence of astrometric and spectroscopic members by about two magnitudes in Y and one magnitude in J, reaching potentially T-type free-floating members in the association with predicted masses below 5 Jupiter masses, well into the planetary-mass regime. We extracted a sample of 57 candidates in this area and present infrared spectroscopy confirming two of them as young L-type members with characteristic spectral features of 10Myr-old brown dwarfs. Among the 57 candidates, we highlight 10 new candidates fainter than the coolest members previously confirmed spectroscopically. We do not see any obvious sign of decrease in the mass spectrum of the association, suggesting that star processes can form substellar objects with masses down to 4-5 Jupiter masses.
Volume-limited sample of cool dwarfs. I. L0-T8 dwarfs
Short Name:
J/AJ/161/42
Date:
21 Oct 2021
Publisher:
CDS
Description:
We present a new volume-limited sample of L0-T8 dwarfs out to 25pc defined entirely by parallaxes, using our recent measurements from UKIRT/WFCAM along with Gaia DR2 and literature parallaxes. With 369 members, our sample is the largest parallax-defined volume-limited sample of L and T dwarfs to date, yielding the most precise space densities for such objects. We find the local L0-T8 dwarf population includes 5.5%{+/-}1.2% young objects (<~200Myr) and 2.6%{+/-}1.6% subdwarfs, as expected from recent studies favoring representative ages <~4Gyr for the ultracool field population. This is also the first volume-limited sample to comprehensively map the transition from L to T dwarfs (spectral types ~L8-T4). After removing binaries, we identify a previously unrecognized, statistically significant (>4.4{sigma}) gap ~0.5mag wide in (J-K)_MKO_ colors in the L/T transition, i.e., a lack of such objects in our volume-limited sample, implying a rapid phase of atmospheric evolution. In contrast, the most successful models of the L/T transition to date-the "hybrid" models of Saumon & Marley-predict a pileup of objects at the same colors where we find a deficit, demonstrating the challenge of modeling the atmospheres of cooling brown dwarfs. Our sample illustrates the insights to come from even larger parallax-selected samples from the upcoming Legacy Survey of Space and Time by the Vera Rubin Obsevatory.
