Simulating Brown Dwarf Observations for Various Mass Functions, Birthrates, and Low-mass Cutoffs
Abstract
After decades of brown dwarf discovery and follow-up, we can now infer the functional form of the mass distribution within 20 pc, which serves as a constraint on star formation theory at the lowest masses. Unlike objects on the main sequence that have a clear luminosity-to-mass correlation, brown dwarfs lack a correlation between an observable parameter (luminosity, spectral type, or color) and mass. A measurement of the brown dwarf mass function must therefore be procured through proxy measurements and theoretical models. We utilize various assumed forms of the mass function, together with a variety of birthrate functions, low-mass cutoffs, and theoretical evolutionary models, to build predicted forms of the effective temperature distribution. We then determine the best fit of the observed effective temperature distribution to these predictions, which in turn reveals the most likely mass function. We find that a simple power law (
- Publication:
-
The Astrophysical Journal
- Pub Date:
- October 2024
- DOI:
- 10.3847/1538-4357/ad62fc
- arXiv:
- arXiv:2406.09690
- Bibcode:
- 2024ApJ...974..222R
- Keywords:
-
- Stellar mass functions;
- Initial mass function;
- Brown dwarfs;
- Star formation;
- Solar neighborhood;
- 1612;
- 796;
- 185;
- 1569;
- 1509;
- Astrophysics - Solar and Stellar Astrophysics;
- Astrophysics - Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
- E-Print:
- 13 pages, 14 figures, 1 table, accepted to ApJ