Atmospheres of brown dwarfs
Abstract
Brown Dwarfs are the coolest class of stellar objects known to date. Our present perception is that Brown Dwarfs follow the principles of star formation, and that Brown Dwarfs share many characteristics with planets. Being the darkest and lowest mass stars known makes Brown Dwarfs also the coolest stars known. This has profound implication for their spectral fingerprints. Brown Dwarfs cover a range of effective temperatures which cause brown dwarfs atmospheres to be a sequence that gradually changes from a M-dwarf-like spectrum into a planet-like spectrum. This further implies that below an effective temperature of ≲ 2800K, clouds form already in atmospheres of objects marking the boundary between M-Dwarfs and brown dwarfs. Recent developments have sparked the interest in plasma processes in such very cool atmospheres: sporadic and quiescent radio emission has been observed in combination with decaying Xray-activity indicators across the fully convective boundary.
Citation
Helling , C & Casewell , S 2014 , ' Atmospheres of brown dwarfs ' , Astronomy and Astrophysics Review , vol. 22 , 80 . https://doi.org/10.1007/s00159-014-0080-0
Publication
Astronomy and Astrophysics Review
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
0935-4956Type
Journal item
Rights
© 2014, Springer. This work is made available online in accordance with the publisher’s policies. This is the author created, accepted version manuscript following peer review and may differ slightly from the final published version. The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00159-014-0080-0
Description
ChH highlights financial support of the European Community under the FP7 by an ERC starting grant. SLC acknowledges financial support of University of LeicesterCollections
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