An Investigation of New Brown Dwarf Spectral Binary Candidates From the Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 Citizen Science Initiative

December 2023 • 2023AJ....166..226B

Authors • Bravo, Alexia • Schneider, Adam C. • Bardalez Gagliuffi, Daniella • Burgasser, Adam J. • Meisner, Aaron M. • Kirkpatrick, J. Davy • Faherty, Jacqueline K. • Kuchner, Marc J. • Caselden, Dan • Sainio, Arttu • Hamlet, Les • Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 Collaboration

Abstract • We present three new brown dwarf spectral-binary candidates: CWISE J072708.09-360729.2, CWISE J103604.84-514424.4, and CWISE J134446.62-732053.9, discovered by citizen scientists through the Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 project. Follow-up near-infrared spectroscopy shows that each of these objects is poorly fit by a single near-infrared standard. We constructed binary templates and found significantly better fits, with component types of L7+T4 for CWISE J072708.09-360729.2, L7+T4 for CWISE J103604.84-514424.4, and L7+T7 for CWISE J134446.62-732053.9. However, further investigation of available spectroscopic indices for evidence of binarity and large amplitude variability suggests that CWISE J072708.09-360729.2 may instead be a strong variability candidate. Our analysis offers tentative evidence and characterization of these peculiar brown dwarf sources, emphasizing their value as promising targets for future high-resolution imaging or photometric variability studies.

Links

• SIMBAD http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbo.pl?bibcode=2023AJ....166..226B
• PDF https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-3881/acffc1/pdf
• PREPRINT http://arxiv.org/abs/2310.06957
• DATA https://irsa.ipac.caltech.edu/bibdata/2023/B/2023AJ....166..226B.html
• ELECTR https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-3881/acffc1