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arXiv · 2209.00759

Discovery of a brown dwarf with quasi-spherical mass-loss

Dary A. Ruíz-Rodríguez·Lucas A. Cieza·Simon Casassus·Victor Almendros-Abad·Paula Jofré·Koraljka Muzic·Karla Peña Ramirez·Grace Batalla-Falcon·Michael M. Dunham·Camilo González-Ruilova·Antonio Hales·Elizabeth Humphreys·Pedro H. Nogueira·Claudia Paladini·John Tobin·Jonathan P. Williams·Alice Zurlo
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Abstract

We report the serendipitous discovery of an elliptical shell of CO associated with the faint stellar object SSTc2d J163134.1-24006 as part of the "Ophiuchus Disk Survey Employing ALMA" (ODISEA), a project aiming to study the entire population of protoplanetary disks in the Ophiuchus Molecular Cloud from 230 GHz continuum emission and $^{12}$CO (J=2-1), $^{13}$CO (J=2-1) and C$^{18}$CO (J=2-1) lines readable in Band-6. Remarkably, we detect a bright $^{12}$CO elliptical shape emission of $\sim$ 3$^{"}$ $\times$ 4$^{"}$ towards SSTc2d J163134.1-24006 without a 230 GHz continuum detection. Based on the observed near-IR spectrum taken with the Very Large Telescope (KMOS), the brightness of the source, its 3-dimensional motion, and Galactic dynamic arguments, we conclude that the source is not a giant star in the distant background ($>$5 - 10 kpc) and is most likely to be a young brown dwarf in the Ophiuchus cloud, at a distance of just $\sim$139 pc. This is the first report of quasi-spherical mass loss in a young brown dwarf. We suggest that the observed shell could be associated with a thermal pulse produced by the fusion of deuterium, which is not yet well understood, but for a sub-stellar object is expected to occur during a short period of time at an age of a few Myr, in agreement with the ages of the objects in the region. Other more exotic scenarios, such as a merger with planetary companions, cannot be ruled out from the current observations.

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Dary A. Ruíz-Rodríguez, Lucas A. Cieza, Simon Casassus, Victor Almendros-Abad, Paula Jofré, Koraljka Muzic, Karla Peña Ramirez, Grace Batalla-Falcon, Michael M. Dunham, Camilo González-Ruilova, Antonio Hales, Elizabeth Humphreys, Pedro H. Nogueira, Claudia Paladini, John Tobin, Jonathan P. Williams, Alice Zurlo. 2022-09-02. Discovery of a brown dwarf with quasi-spherical mass-loss. https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ac8ff5

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