A Methane Isolated Planetary Mass Object in Orion

Abstract

We report on the discovery of a free-floating methane dwarf toward the direction of the young star cluster sigma Orionis. Based on the object's far-red optical and near-infrared photometry and spectroscopy, we conclude that it is a possible member of this association. We have named it as S Ori J053810.1-023626 (S Ori 70 is the abridged name). If it is a true member of sigma Orionis, the comparison of the photometric and spectroscopic properties of S Ori 70 with state-of-the-art evolutionary models yields a mass of 3 (+5/-1) Jupiter mass for ages between 1 Myr and 8 Myr. The presence of such a low-mass object in our small search area (55.4 sq. arcmin) would indicate a rising substellar initial mass function in the sigma Orionis cluster even for planetary masses.

Accepted for publication in the ApJ. Twelve pages, figures and tables included

References in corpus (1)

• The Formation Mechanism of Brown Dwarfs

Cited by in corpus (78)

• Evolutionary models for cool brown dwarfs and extrasolar giant planets. The case of HD 20945
• The Formation of a Star Cluster: Predicting the Properties of Stars and Brown Dwarfs
• Defining and cataloging exoplanets: The exoplanet.eu database
• Near-Infrared Photometry and Spectroscopy of L and T Dwarfs: the Effects of Temperature, Clouds, and Gravity
• Stellar, brown dwarf and multiple star properties from a radiation hydrodynamical simulation of star cluster formation
• A Unified Near Infrared Spectral Classification Scheme for T Dwarfs
• Origins of Eccentric Extrasolar Planets: Testing the Planet-Planet Scattering Model
• Binarity in Brown Dwarfs: T Dwarf Binaries Discovered with the Hubble Space Telescope WPFC2
• Further Defining Spectral Type "Y" and Exploring the Low-mass End of the Field Brown Dwarf Mass Function
• The Brown Dwarf Kinematics Project (BDKP) I. Proper Motions and Tangential Velocities for a Large Sample of Late-type M, L and T Dwarfs
• Infrared Parallaxes for Methane T dwarfs
• Discovery of Two T Dwarf Companions with the Spitzer Space Telescope
• The Formation and Early Evolution of Low-mass Stars and Brown Dwarfs
• Planet formation and migration
• The Great Escape: How Exoplanets and Smaller Bodies Desert Dying Stars
• A Method for Determining the Physical Properties of the Coldest Known Brown Dwarfs
• Discovery of 11 New T Dwarfs in the Two Micron All-Sky Survey, Including a Possible L/T Transition Binary
• The Young Planet-mass Object 2M1207b: a cool, cloudy, and methane-poor atmosphere
• New isolated planetary mass objects and the stellar and substellar mass function of the sigma Orionis cluster
• Planet-Planet Scattering Alone Cannot Explain the Free-Floating Planet Population
• A Young Brown Dwarf Companion to DH Tauri
• Clouds in the Coldest Brown Dwarfs: FIRE Spectroscopy of Ross 458C
• Photometric Identification of the low-Mass Population of Orion OB1b I: The sigma Ori Cluster
• Young, Low-Mass Brown Dwarfs with Mid-Infrared Excesses
• The statistical properties of stars and their dependence on metallicity: the effects of opacity
• The 2MASS Wide-Field T Dwarf Search. I. Discovery of a Bright T Dwarf Within 10 pc of the Sun
• Disks around Brown Dwarfs in the Sigma Orionis Cluster
• CFBDSIR2149-0403: a 4-7 Jupiter-mass free-floating planet in the young moving group AB Doradus ?
• The substellar mass function in sigma Orionis. II. Optical, near-infrared and IRAC/Spitzer photometry of young cluster brown dwarfs and planetary-mass objects
• The case for OH suppression at near-infrared wavelengths
• Kinematic structure in the young Sigma Orionis association
• Candidate free-floating super-Jupiters in the young sigma Orionis open cluster
• Astrometric and photometric initial mass functions from the UKIDSS Galactic Clusters Survey: I The Pleiades
• The Minimum Mass for Opacity-Limited Fragmentation in Turbulent Cloud Cores
• Contamination by field late-M, L and T dwarfs in deep surveys
• Stars and brown dwarfs in the sigma Orionis cluster: the Mayrit catalogue
• Proper motion L and T dwarf candidate members of the Pleiades
• The Great Escape II: Exoplanet Ejection from Dying Multiple Star Systems
• Spatial distribution of stars and brown dwarfs in sigma Orionis
• Young T-Dwarf Candidates in IC 348
• Search for very low-mass brown dwarfs and free-floating planetary-mass objects in Taurus
• S Ori 70: Just a Foreground Field Brown Dwarf?
• The optical+infrared L dwarf spectral sequence of young planetary-mass objects in the Upper Scorpius association
• Dynamical parallax of sigma Ori AB: mass, distance and age
• The low-mass population of the Rho Ophiuchi molecular cloud
• Dusty disks at the bottom of the IMF
• A Young Planetary-Mass Object in the rho Oph Cloud Core
• Constraining the Frequency of Free-Floating Planets from a Synthesis of Microlensing, Radial Velocity, and Direct Imaging Survey Results
• A deep look into the cores of young clusters I. sigma-Orionis
• New constraints on the membership of the T dwarf S Ori 70 in the sigma Orionis cluster
• Two T dwarfs from the UKIDSS Early Data Release
• Deep Near-Infrared Imaging of the rho Oph Cloud Core: Clues to the Origin of the Lowest-Mass Brown Dwarfs
• Chemical abundances of late-type pre-main sequence stars in the $\sigma$-Orionis cluster
• Spectroscopic estimate of surface gravity for a planetary member in the Sigma Ori cluster
• Optical and Near-Infrared Spectra of sigma Orionis Isolated Planetary-mass Objects
• Search and characterization of T-type planetary mass candidates in the sigma Orionis cluster
• Low-resolution spectroscopy and spectral energy distributions of selected sources towards sigma Orionis
• Are isolated planetary-mass objects really isolated? A brown dwarf-exoplanet system candidate in the sigma Orionis cluster
• The Cornell High-order Adaptive Optics Survey for Brown Dwarfs in Stellar Systems-I: Observations, Data Reduction, and Detection Analysis
• A Methane Imaging Survey for T Dwarf Candidates in Rho Ophiuchi
• The ages of L dwarfs
• New deep XMM-Newton observations to the west of the sigma Orionis cluster
• Using Narrow Band Photometry to Detect Young Brown Dwarfs in IC348
• Testing the fragmentation limit in the Upper Sco association
• Ultracool Field Brown Dwarf Candidates Selected at 4.5 microns
• HRC-I/Chandra X-ray observations towards sigma Orionis
• A Distance-Limited Imaging Survey of Sub-Stellar Companions to Solar Neighborhood Stars
• Identifying nearby field T dwarfs in the UKIDSS Galactic Clusters Survey
• Methane band and Spitzer mid-IR imaging of L and T dwarf candidates in the Pleiades
• Searching for planetary-mass T-dwarfs in the core of Serpens
• Characterization of the known T type dwarfs towards the Sigma Orionis cluster
• Gravitational Instability of Rotating, Pressure-Confined, Polytropic Gas Disks With Vertical Stratification
• Planets in Open Clusters Detectable by Kepler
• The Science Case for PILOT III: the Nearby Universe
• Proper motions of Upper Sco T-type candidates
• CFBDSIR 2149-0403: young isolated planetary-mass object or high-metallicity low-mass brown dwarf??
• Discovery of Young Methane Dwarfs in the Rho Ophiuchi L 1688 Dark Cloud
• Formation, evolution and multiplicity of brown dwarfs and giant exoplanets