Ultracool and Brown Dwarf Candidates Identified via CatWISE-2MASS-Gaia DR3

Abstract

Ultracool and brown dwarf candidates ($d_{\odot }\lesssim 125$ pc, $|b|>8^{\circ }$) were identified via multiband and astrometric data from CatWISE ($W_1{W}_2$), 2MASS ($JH{K}_s$), and Gaia DR3 ($G$, $G_{RP}$, $\pi$, ${\mu }_{\alpha }$, ${\mu }_{\delta }$). $N\approx 11.8\times 10^3$ candidates emerged once simultaneously constrained by color and absolute magnitude criteria (e.g., $G-W_2\ge 1.75(G-J)-2.25$), whereby $\simeq 350$ sources are absent from the Gaia Ultracool Dwarf (UCD) catalog. Spectral types were approximated using a hybrid $M_G-M_{W_1}$ sigmoid that offers additional temperature coverage in certain cases. Subsequent efforts may focus on extending sampling to the deeper NIR VVVX footprint that partly encompasses the Galactic plane, and over the long-term spectroscopically (in)validating candidates missing from the Gaia UCD database.

To appear in publication