Primeval very low-mass stars and brown dwarfs - IV. New L subdwarfs, Gaia astrometry, population properties, and a blue brown dwarf binary

Zhang, Z. H.; Galvez-Ortiz, M. C.; Pinfield, D. J.; Burgasser, A. J.; Lodieu, N.; Jones, H. R. A.; Martín, E. L.; Burningham, B.; Homeier, D.; Allard, F.; Zapatero Osorio, M. R.; Smith, L. C.; Smart, R. L.; López Martí, B.; Marocco, F.; Rebolo, R.
Bibliographical reference

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 480, Issue 4, p.5447-5474

Advertised on:
11
2018
Number of authors
16
IAC number of authors
3
Citations
28
Refereed citations
25
Description
We present 27 new L subdwarfs and classify five of them as esdL and 22 as sdL. Our L subdwarf candidates were selected with the UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey and Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Spectroscopic follow-up was carried out primarily with the OSIRIS spectrograph on the Gran Telescopio Canarias. Some of these new objects were followed up with the X-shooter instrument on the Very Large Telescope. We studied the photometric properties of the population of known L subdwarfs using colour-spectral type diagrams and colour-colour diagrams, by comparison with L dwarfs and main sequence stars, and identified new colour spaces for L subdwarf selection/study in current and future surveys. We further discussed the brown dwarf transition-zone and the observational stellar/substellar boundary. We found that about one-third of 66 known L subdwarfs are substellar objects, with two-thirds being very low-mass stars. We also present the Hertzsprung-Russell diagrams, spectral type-absolute magnitude corrections, and tangential velocities of 20 known L subdwarfs observed by the Gaia astrometry satellite. One of our L subdwarf candidates, ULAS J233227.03+123452.0, is a mildly metal-poor spectroscopic binary brown dwarf: a ˜L6p dwarf and a ˜T4p dwarf. This binary is likely a thick disc member according to its kinematics.
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