Improved Infrared Photometry and a Preliminary Parallax Measurement for the Extremely Cold Brown Dwarf CWISEP J144606.62-231717.8
Abstract
We present follow-up Spitzer observations at 3.6 μm (ch1) and 4.5 μm (ch2) of CWISEP J144606.62-231717.8, one of the coldest known brown dwarfs in the solar neighborhood. This object was found by mining the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) and NEOWISE data via the CatWISE Preliminary Catalog by Meisner et al., where an initial Spitzer color of ch1-ch2 = 3.71 ± 0.44 mag was reported, implying it could be one of the reddest, and hence coldest, known brown dwarfs. Additional Spitzer data presented here allows us to revise its color to ch1-ch2 = 2.986 ± 0.048 mag, which makes CWISEP J144606.62-231717.8 the fifth reddest brown dwarf ever observed. A preliminary trigonometric parallax measurement, based on a combination of WISE and Spitzer astrometry, places this object at a distance of {10.1}-1.3+1.7 pc. Based on our improved Spitzer color and preliminary parallax, CWISEP J144606.62-231717.8 has a T eff in the 310-360 K range. Assuming an age of 0.5-13 Gyr, this corresponds to a mass between 2 and 20 M Jup.
- Publication:
-
The Astrophysical Journal
- Pub Date:
- January 2020
- DOI:
- arXiv:
- arXiv:1912.07692
- Bibcode:
- 2020ApJ...888L..19M
- Keywords:
-
- Brown dwarfs;
- Y dwarfs;
- Solar neighborhood;
- Trigonometric parallax;
- Proper motions;
- 185;
- 1827;
- 1509;
- 1713;
- 1295;
- Astrophysics - Solar and Stellar Astrophysics;
- Astrophysics - Earth and Planetary Astrophysics;
- Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies
- E-Print:
- Accepted by ApJL. 8 pages, 3 figures, 1 table