Discovery of the first young brown dwarf in the Serpens cluster

Lodieu, N.; Caux, E.; Monin, J.-L.; Klotz, A.
Bibliographical reference

Astronomy and Astrophysics, v.383, p.L15-L18 (2002)

Advertised on:
3
2002
Number of authors
4
IAC number of authors
0
Citations
19
Refereed citations
17
Description
In this letter, we report the discovery of the first young early L-dwarf in the Serpens cloud. It is obscured by more than ten magnitudes of visual absorption and was found during a near infrared (NIR) photometric survey of a 50 square arcmin area in the Serpens cloud, deep enough to probe the substellar domain. After selection from NIR colour-magnitude and colour-colour diagrams, its substellar nature has been confirmed by NIR spectroscopy at the VLT. We estimate the mass of this brown dwarf to be ~ 0.05 Msun and its age to be ~ 3.5 Myr. From its NIR indices, we estimate its present spectral type to be L0-L3, and using a model its future spectral type to be T. This is the first young brown dwarf ever found deeply embedded in a star formation region. Based on observations collected with NTT/SOFI and VLT/ISAAC instruments at the European Southern Observatories, La Silla and Paranal, Chile (ESO Programmes P63.L-0227 and P65.L-0637).