Our Nearest 15 Million Neighbors: The Field Low-Mass Stellar Luminosity and Mass Functions
Abstract
We report on a new measurement of the luminosity function (LF) and mass function (MF) of field low-mass dwarfs using Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) photometry. The final catalog is composed of ~15 million low-mass stars (0.1 Msolar<M<0.8 Msolar), spread over 8,400 square degrees. Distances to the stars are estimated using new photometric parallax relations, constructed from ugriz photometry of nearby low-mass stars with trigonometric parallaxes. The LF is measured with a novel technique, which simultaneously measures Galactic structure and the stellar LF. The resulting LF is compared to previous studies and converted to a MF. The MF is well-described by a log-normal distribution, with M° = 0.27 Msolar.
- Publication:
-
15th Cambridge Workshop on Cool Stars, Stellar Systems, and the Sun
- Pub Date:
- February 2009
- DOI:
- 10.1063/1.3099284
- arXiv:
- arXiv:0810.2343
- Bibcode:
- 2009AIPC.1094..977B
- Keywords:
-
- 97.20.Vs;
- 95.55.Qf;
- 95.80.+p;
- Low luminosity stars subdwarfs and brown dwarfs;
- Photometric polarimetric and spectroscopic instrumentation;
- Astronomical catalogs atlases sky surveys databases retrieval systems archives etc.;
- brown dwarfs;
- photometry;
- astronomical atlases;
- Astrophysics
- E-Print:
- 4 pages, 3 figures. Included in the proceedings of Cool Stars 15