The Substellar Luminosity and Mass Functions of the Trapezium Cluster Down to the Deuterium Burning Limit

Abstract

We have employed an advanced suite of Monte Carlo calculations to model the infrared luminosity function (KLF) of the Trapezium cluster and to derive its Sub-stellar Initial Mass Function down to the deuterium burning limit. Independent of the details, we find that sub-stellar objects can account for no more than ~ 22% of the total number of likely cluster members. This cluster's substellar IMF steadily declines in a power-law fashion over most of the brown dwarf regime, however the formation of a secondary peak in the cluster's substellar KLF suggests the existence of a corresponding secondary peak in the substellar IMF between 10 and 30 times the mass of Jupiter based upon the seemingly degenerate behavior of the theoretical substellar mass-luminosity relation.