Exploring the age dependent properties of M and L dwarfs using Gaia and SDSS

Abstract

We present a sample of 74,216 M and L dwarfs constructed from two existing catalogs of cool dwarfs spectroscopically identified in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). We cross-matched the SDSS catalog with Gaia DR2 to obtain parallaxes and proper motions and modified the quality cuts suggested by the Gaia Collaboration to make them suitable for late-M and L dwarfs. We also provide relations between Gaia colors and absolute magnitudes with spectral type and conclude that (G-RP) has the tightest relation to spectral type for M and L dwarfs. In addition, we study magnetic activity as a function of position on the color-magnitude diagram, finding that Halpha magnetically active stars have, on average, redder colors and/or brighter magnitudes than inactive stars. This effect cannot be explained by youth alone and might indicate that active stars are magnetically inflated, binaries and/or high metallicity. Moreover, we find that vertical velocity and vertical action dispersion are correlated with Halpha emission, confirming that these two parameters are age indicators. We also find that stars below the main sequence have high tangential velocity which is consistent with a low metallicity and old population of stars that belong to the halo or thick disk.

Accepted by AJ

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