Cold Brown Dwarfs with WISE: Y Dwarfs and the Field Mass Function

Kirkpatrick, J. Davy

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NASA NTRS · 20130009344

Cold Brown Dwarfs with WISE: Y Dwarfs and the Field Mass Function

Kirkpatrick, J. Davy

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Abstract

Why study Brown Dwarf stars? They re the lowest mass byproducts of star formation.. They provide time capsules across the age of the Galaxy.. They show what low-T(sub eff) atmospheres look like.. They may be some of our closest neighbors in space..WISE is a 40cm Earth-orbiting telescope. There are 211 stars and only 33 brown dwarfs in this volume.. This means that stars outnumber brown dwarfs by a factor of 6:1 currently.. The number of brown dwarfs will continue to increase if:: (a) more nearby Y dwarf candidates are confirmed, or (b) our distances to known Y s are overestimated, or (c) there are colder BDs invisible to WISE..

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BibTeX RIS

Kirkpatrick, J. Davy. 2012-06-24. Cold Brown Dwarfs with WISE: Y Dwarfs and the Field Mass Function. https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/20130009344

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