Bibcode
Manjavacas, E.; Miles-Páez, P. A.; Zapatero-Osorio, Maria Rosa; Goldman, Bertrand; Buenzli, Esther; Henning, Thomas; Pallé, E.
Bibliographical reference
The 19th Cambridge Workshop on Cool Stars, Stellar Systems, and the Sun (CS19), Uppsala, Sweden, 06-10 June 2016, id.143
Advertised on:
8
2016
Citations
0
Refereed citations
0
Description
Linear polarization due to scattering processes can be used as a probe
of the existence of atmospheric condensates in ultracool dwarfs. Models
predict that the observed linear polarization increases with the degree
of oblateness, which is inverse to the surface gravity.We aimed to
measure optical linear polarization from a sample of six young brown
dwarfs, with spectral types between M6 to L2, and cataloged previously
as objects with low gravity using spectroscopy. These targets are
believed to have dusty atmospheres as a consequence of their low
gravity, therefore linearly polarized light is expected from these
objects.Linear polarimetric data were collected in I and R-band using
CAFOS at the 2.2m telescope in Calar Alto Observatory.We obtained
results of linear polarization in the I-band compatible with non
polarization for all the objects, and similar results for the
polarization degree in the R-band for all objects with the exception of
2M0422. For this object we find a linear polarization degree of
0.81+-0.18%. 2M0422 is 10 deg to the south of the Taurus star-forming
region, thus, we suspect that its polarization is caused by the dust in
the cloud in which 2M0422 might be embedded.