An Investigation of New Brown Dwarf Spectral Binary Candidates From the Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 Citizen Science Initiative
We present three new brown dwarf spectral binary candidates: CWISE J072708.09−360729.2, CWISE J103604.84−514424.4, and CWISE J134446.62−732053.9, discovered by citizen scientists through the Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 project.
Follow-up near-infrared spectroscopy shows that each of these objects is poorly fit by a single near-infrared standard. We constructed binary templates and found significantly better fits, with component types of L7+T4 for CWISE J072708.09−360729.2, L7+T4 for CWISE J103604.84−514424.4, and L7+T7 for CWISE J134446.62−732053.9. However, further investigation of available spectroscopic indices for evidence of binarity and large amplitude variability suggests that CWISE J072708.09−360729.2 may instead be a strong variability candidate. Our analysis offers tentative evidence and characterization of these peculiar brown dwarf sources, emphasizing their value as promising targets for future high-resolution imaging or photometric variability studies.
Alexia Bravo, Adam C. Schneider, Daniella Bardalez Gagliuffi, Adam J. Burgasser, Aaron M. Meisner, J. Davy Kirkpatrick, Jacqueline K. Faherty, Marc J. Kuchner, Dan Caselden, Arttu Sainio, Les Hamlet, The Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 Collaboration
Comments: Accepted to the Astronomical Journal
Subjects: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR); Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)
Cite as: arXiv:2310.06957 [astro-ph.SR] (or arXiv:2310.06957v1 [astro-ph.SR] for this version)
Submission history
From: Alexia Bravo
[v1] Tue, 10 Oct 2023 19:20:02 UTC (988 KB)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.06957
Astrobiology,