Gray Spectral Variability in Three Brown Dwarfs Observed by HST/WFC3 Time-Series Observations

Abstract

The L/T transition is a critical evolutionary stage for brown dwarfs and self-luminous giant planets. L/T transition brown dwarfs are more likely to be spectroscopically variable, and their high-amplitude variability probes distributions in their clouds and chemical makeup. This paper presents Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field Camera 3 spectral time series data for three variable L/T transition brown dwarfs and compares the findings to the highly variable benchmark object 2MASS J2139. All four targets reveal significant brightness variability between 1.1 to 1.65 micron but show a difference in wavelength dependence of the variability amplitude. Three of our targets do not show significant decrease in variability amplitude in the 1.4 $\mu$m water absorption band commonly found in previous studies of L/T transition brown dwarfs. Additionally, at least two brown dwarfs have irregular-shaped, non-sinusoidal light curves. We create heterogeneous atmospheric models by linearly combining SONORA Diamondback model spectra, comparing them with the observations, and identifying the optimal effective temperature, cloud opacity, and cloud coverage for each object. Comparisons between the observed and model color-magnitude variations that trace both spectral windows and molecular features reveal that the early- T dwarfs likely possess heterogeneous clouds. The three T dwarfs show different trends in the same color-magnitude space which suggests secondary mechanisms driving their spectral variability. This work broadens the sample of L/T transition brown dwarfs that have detailed spectral time series analysis and offers new insights that can guide future atmospheric modeling efforts for both brown dwarfs and exoplanets.