Identifying Young Brown Dwarfs Using Gravity‐Sensitive Spectral Features

Abstract

We report the initial results of the Brown Dwarf Spectroscopic Survey Gravity Project to study gravity sensitive features as indicators of youth in brown dwarfs. Low-resolution (R ~ 2000) J-band and optical (R ~ 1000) observations using NIRSPEC and LRIS at the W. M. Keck Observatory reveal transitions of TiO, VO, K I, Na I, Cs I, Rb I, CaH, and FeH. By comparing these features in late-type giants and in old field dwarfs, we show that they are sensitive to the gravity (g = GM/R2) of the object. Using low-gravity spectral signatures as age indicators, we observed and analyzed J-band and optical spectra of two young brown dwarfs, G196-3B (20-300 Myr) and KPNO Tau 4 (1-2 Myr) and two possible low-mass brown dwarfs in the σ Orionis cluster (3-7 Myr). We report the identification of the bands of TiO near 1.24 μm and the A-X band of VO near 1.18 μm together with extremely weak J-band lines of K I in KPNO Tau 4. This is the first detection of TiO and VO in the J band in a substellar-mass object. The optical spectrum of KPNO Tau 4 exhibits weak K I and Na I lines, weak absorption by CaH, and strong VO bands, also signatures of a lower gravity atmosphere. G196-3B shows absorption features in both wavelength regions, like those of KPNO Tau 4, suggesting that its age and mass are at the lower end of published estimates. Whereas σ Ori 51 appears to be consistent with a young substellar object, σ Ori 47 shows signatures of high gravity most closely resembling an old L1.5/L0 and cannot be a member of the σ Orionis cluster.