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arXiv · astro-ph/0305412

A Disk Census for Young Brown Dwarfs

Abstract

Recent surveys have identified sub-stellar objects down to planetary masses in nearby star-forming regions. Reliable determination of the disk frequency in young brown dwarfs is of paramount importance to understanding their origin. Here we report the results of a systematic study of infrared L'-band (3.8-micron) disk excess in ~50 spectroscopically confirmed objects near and below the sub-stellar boundary in several young clusters. Our observations, using the ESO Very Large Telescope, Keck I and the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility, reveal that a significant fraction of brown dwarfs harbor disks at a very young age. Their inner disk lifetimes do not appear to be vastly different from those of disks around T Tauri stars. Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that sub-stellar objects form via a mechanism similar to solar-mass stars.

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Ray Jayawardhana, David R. Ardila, Beate Stelzer, Karl E. Haisch Jr. 2003-05-30. A Disk Census for Young Brown Dwarfs. https://doi.org/10.1086/377144

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