An Investigation of New Brown Dwarf Spectral Binary Candidates From the Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 Citizen Science Initiative
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.
- Publication:
-
The Astronomical Journal
- Pub Date:
- December 2023
- DOI:
- arXiv:
- arXiv:2310.06957
- Bibcode:
- 2023AJ....166..226B
- Keywords:
-
- Brown dwarfs;
- L dwarfs;
- T dwarfs;
- Binary stars;
- 185;
- 894;
- 1679;
- 154;
- Astrophysics - Solar and Stellar Astrophysics;
- Astrophysics - Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
- E-Print:
- Accepted to the Astronomical Journal