First Confirmed Detection of a Bipolar Molecular Outflow from a Young Brown Dwarf

Abstract

Studying the earliest stages in the birth of stars is crucial for understanding how they form. Brown dwarfs with masses between that of stars and planets are not massive enough to maintain stable hydrogen-burning fusion reactions during most of their lifetime. Their origins are subject to much debate in recent literature because their masses are far below the typical mass where core collapse is expected to occur. We present the first confirmed evidence that brown dwarfs undergo a phase of molecular outflow that is typical of young stars. Using the Submillimeter Array, we have obtained a map of a bipolar molecular outflow from a young brown dwarf. We estimate an outflow mass of 1.6 x 10^-4 M_Sun and a mass-loss rate of 1.4 x 10^-9 M_Sun. These values are over two orders of magnitude smaller than the typical ones for T Tauri stars. From our millimiter continuum data and our own analysis of Spitzer infrared photometry, we estimate that the brown dwarf has a disk with a mass of 8 x 10^-3 M_Sun and an outer disk radius of 80 AU. Our results demonstrate that the bipolar molecular outflow operates down to planetary masses, occurring in brown dwarfs as a scaled-down version of the universal process seen in young stars.

accepted by ApJ Letters

References in corpus (17)

• Theory of Star Formation
• The Infrared Spectrograph on the Spitzer Space Telescope
• The NextGen Model Atmosphere grid for $3000\le \Teff \le 10000\K$
• The Submillimeter Array
• The SMART Data Analysis Package for the Infrared Spectrograph on the Spitzer Space Telescope
• Accretion in Brown Dwarfs: an Infrared View
• Bolocam Survey for 1.1 mm Dust Continuum Emission in the c2d Legacy Clouds. II. Ophiuchus
• Evidence for a T Tauri Phase in Young Brown Dwarfs
• A resolved outflow of matter from a Brown Dwarf
• Exploring Brown Dwarf Disks in rho Oph
• Four Brown Dwarfs in the Taurus Star-Forming Region
• Discovery of a Low Mass Bipolar Molecular Outflow from L1014-IRS with the Submillimeter Array
• Discovery of a Bipolar Outflow from 2MASSW J1207334-393254, A 24 Jupiter Mass Brown Dwarf
• Deep Near-Infrared Observations of L1014: Revealing the nature of the core and its embedded source
• Constraints to the Masses of Brown Dwarf Candidates from the Lithium Test
• New Brown Dwarf Disks in the TW Hydrae Association
• Abundant crystalline silicates in the disk of a very low mass star

Cited by in corpus (38)

• The Formation and Early Evolution of Low-mass Stars and Brown Dwarfs
• Molecular Outflows Driven by Low-Mass Protostars. I. Correcting for Underestimates When Measuring Outflow Masses and Dynamical Properties
• Rotation and Outflow motions in the very low-mass Class 0 protostellar system HH 211 at subarcsecond resolution
• Spectroscopic Confirmation of Young Planetary-Mass Companions on Wide Orbits
• IC348-SMM2E: a Class 0 proto-brown dwarf candidate forming as a scaled-down version of low-mass stars
• Classical T Tauri-like Outflow Activity in the Brown Dwarf Mass Regime
• The Enigmatic Young Low-Mass Variable TWA 30
• ALMA observations of rho-Oph 102: grain growth and molecular gas in the disk around a young Brown Dwarf
• OTS44: Disk and accretion at the planetary border
• Dipper disks not inclined towards edge-on orbits
• First Direct Simulation of Brown Dwarf Formation in a Compact Cloud Core
• Spatially Resolved Observations of the Bipolar Optical Outflow from the Brown Dwarf 2MASSJ12073347-3932540
• Molecular Outflows in the Substellar Domain: Millimeter Observations of Young Very Low Mass Objects in Taurus and rho Ophiuchi
• A search for pre-substellar cores and proto-brown dwarf candidates in Taurus: multiwavelength analysis in the B213-L1495 clouds
• Discovery of the Youngest Molecular Outflow associated with an Intermediate-mass protostellar Core, MMS-6/OMC-3
• Characterization of Molecular Outflows in The Substellar Domain
• Confirmation of the VeLLO L1148-IRS: Star Formation at very low (Column) Density
• The radial distribution of dust species in young brown dwarf disks
• The bipolar outflow and disk of the brown dwarf ISO217
• A homogeneous analysis of disks around brown dwarfs
• A molecular outflow driven by the brown dwarf binary FU Tau
• CO multi-line observations of HH 80-81: a two-component molecular outflow associated with the largest protostellar jet in our Galaxy
• Supersonic turbulence in the cold massive core JCMT 18354-0649S
• Accretion-ejection connection in the young brown dwarf candidate ISO-Cha1 217
• Formation of multiple low mass stars, brown dwarfs and planemos via gravitational collapse
• Discovery of an outflow of the very low-mass star ISO 143
• Spatially resolved H_2 emission from a very low-mass star
• Jets from young stars and brown dwarfs
• ALMA observations of the early stages of substellar formation in the Lupus 1 and 3 molecular clouds
• Carbon-Chain and Organic Molecules around Very Low-Luminosity Protostellar Objects of L1521F-IRS and IRAM 04191+1522
• Bipolar molecular outflow of the very low-mass star Par-Lup3-4
• Two confirmed class I very low-mass objects in Taurus
• Near- And Mid-Infrared Imaging Study of Young Stellar Objects around LkH$\alpha$ 234
• Disks, accretion and outflows of brown dwarfs
• Discovery of a New Molecular Bubble-Outflow Structure in the Taurus B18 Cloud
• SMA observations of the proto brown dwarf candidate SSTB213 J041757
• Searching for Brown Dwarf Outflows
• Brown Dwarf Jets: Investigating the Universality of Jet Launching Mechanisms at the Lowest Masses