The low-mass population of the Rho Ophiuchi molecular cloud

Abstract

Star formation theories are currently divergent regarding the fundamental physical processes that dominate the substellar regime. Observations of nearby young open clusters allow the brown dwarf (BD) population to be characterised down to the planetary mass regime, which ultimately must be accommodated by a successful theory. We hope to uncover the low-mass population of the Rho Ophiuchi molecular cloud and investigate the properties of the newly found brown dwarfs. We use near-IR deep images (reaching completeness limits of approximately 20.5 mag in J, and 18.9 mag in H and Ks) taken with the Wide Field IR Camera (WIRCam) at the Canada France Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) to identify candidate members of Rho Oph in the substellar regime. A spectroscopic follow-up of a small sample of the candidates allows us to assess their spectral type, and subsequently their temperature and membership. We select 110 candidate members of the Rho Ophiuchi molecular cloud, from which 80 have not previously been associated with the cloud. We observed a small sample of these and spectroscopically confirm six new brown dwarfs with spectral types ranging from M6.5 to M8.25.

References in corpus (23)

• A Spitzer Survey of Young Stellar Clusters within One Kiloparsec of the Sun: Cluster Core Extraction and Basic Structural Analysis
• Analytical theory for the initial mass function: CO clumps and prestellar cores
• Subaru Deep Survey V. A Census of Lyman Break Galaxies at z=4 and 5 in the Subaru Deep Fields: Photometric Properties
• The properties of brown dwarfs and low-mass hydrogen-burning stars formed by disc fragmentation
• Accretion in the Rho-Oph pre-main sequence stars
• The Stellar Population of the Chamaeleon I Star-Forming Region
• The COMPLETE Survey of Star-Forming Regions: Phase I Data
• Characterizing Young Brown Dwarfs using Low Resolution Near-IR Spectra
• An Infrared/X-ray Survey for New Members of the Taurus Star-Forming Region
• The Wide Brown Dwarf Binary Oph 1622-2405 and Discovery of A Wide, Low Mass Binary in Ophiuchus (Oph 1623-2402): A New Class of Young Evaporating Wide Binaries?
• On the Distance to the Ophiuchus Star-Forming Region
• 2MASS wide field extinction maps: II. The Ophiuchus and the Lupus cloud complexe
• Evidence for a Turnover in the IMF of Low Mass Stars and Sub-stellar Objects: Analysis from an Ensemble of Young Clusters
• The Spitzer c2d Survey of Large, Nearby, Interstellar Clouds: VII. Ophiuchus Observed with MIPS
• Infrared Spectroscopy and Analysis of Brown Dwarf and Planetary Mass Objects in the Orion Nebula Cluster
• Substellar Objects in Nearby Young Clusters (SONYC): The bottom of the Initial Mass Function in NGC1333
• Discovery of a High Proper Motion L Dwarf Binary: 2MASS J15200224-4422419AB
• The lower mass function of the young open cluster Blanco 1: from 30 Mjup to 3 Mo
• Deep near-IR variability survey of pre-main-sequence stars in Rho Ophiuchi
• Oph 1622-2405: Not a Planetary-Mass Binary
• A Young Planetary-Mass Object in the rho Oph Cloud Core
• A deep look into the cores of young clusters I. sigma-Orionis
• Results from Droxo. I. The variability of fluorescent Fe 6.4 keV emission in the young star Elias 29: High-energy electrons in the star's accretion tubes?

Cited by in corpus (39)

• The Formation and Early Evolution of Low-mass Stars and Brown Dwarfs
• Disk evolution in the solar neighborhood. I Disk frequencies from 1 to 100 Myr
• Zodiacal Exoplanets in Time (ZEIT) V: A Uniform Search for Transiting Planets in Young Clusters Observed by K2
• The Gould's Belt Very Large Array Survey I: The Ophiuchus complex
• A Herschel Survey of Cold Dust in Disks Around Brown Dwarfs and Low-Mass Stars
• Spectroscopy of brown dwarf candidates in IC 348 and the determination of its substellar IMF down to planetary masses
• Spectroscopy of new brown dwarf members of rho Ophiuchi and an updated initial mass function
• A Census of the Stellar Populations in the Sco-Cen Complex
• The Initial Mass Function and Disk Frequency of the Rho Ophiuchi Cloud: An Extinction-Limited Sample
• X-Shooter study of accretion in $\rho$-Ophiucus: very low-mass stars and brown dwarfs
• Substellar Objects in Nearby Young Clusters (SONYC) V: New brown dwarfs in rho Ophiuchi
• Testing the universality of the IMF with Bayesian statistics: young clusters
• The optical+infrared L dwarf spectral sequence of young planetary-mass objects in the Upper Scorpius association
• YSOVAR: Mid-IR variability in the star forming region Lynds 1688
• A Survey for New Stars and Brown Dwarfs in the Ophiuchus Star-forming Complex
• Deep Near-Infrared Imaging of the rho Oph Cloud Core: Clues to the Origin of the Lowest-Mass Brown Dwarfs
• Substellar Objects in Nearby Young Clusters (SONYC) II: The Brown Dwarf Population of Rho Ophiuchi
• Search and characterization of T-type planetary mass candidates in the sigma Orionis cluster
• A Novel Survey for Young Substellar Objects with the W-band Filter. I. Filter Design and New Discoveries in Ophiuchus and Perseus
• A search for mass segregation of stars and brown dwarfs in ρ Ophiuchi
• Herschel survey of brown dwarf disks in Rho Ophiuchi
• Proper motion survey and kinematic analysis of the Rho Ophiuchi embedded cluster
• Infrared study of transitional disks in Ophiuchus with Herschel
• ALMA Discovery of a Disk around the Planetary-mass Companion SR 12 c
• Multiplicity of disc-bearing stars in Upper Scorpius and Upper Centaurus-Lupus
• Testing the fragmentation limit in the Upper Sco association
• A Mid-Infrared Study of Directly-Imaged Planetary-Mass Companions using Archival Spitzer/IRAC Images
• A homogeneous analysis of disks around brown dwarfs
• New member candidates of Upper Scorpius from Gaia DR1
• A Significant Population of Candidate New Members of the Rho Ophiuchi Cluster
• JVLA Observations of Young Brown Dwarfs
• Characterization of the known T type dwarfs towards the Sigma Orionis cluster
• Proper motions of Upper Sco T-type candidates
• Spectroscopy of Candidate Members of the Sco-Cen Complex
• Discovery of Young Methane Dwarfs in the Rho Ophiuchi L 1688 Dark Cloud
• A Novel Survey for Young Substellar Objects with the W-band filter III: Searching for very low mass brown dwarfs in Serpens South and Serpens Core
• Distinct Rotational Evolution of Giant Planets and Brown Dwarf Companions
• Fundamental stellar parameters for selected T-Tauri stars in the Chamaeleon and Rho Ophiuchus star-forming regions
• Substellar candidates at the earliest stages: the SUCANES database