We present the discovery of 13 new widely separated T dwarf companions to M dwarf primaries, identified using Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer/NEOWISE data by the CatWISE and Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 projects (hereafter BYW). This sample represents an ∼60% increase in the number of known M + T systems, and allows us to probe the most extreme products of binary/planetary system formation, a discovery space made available by the CatWISE2020 catalog and the BYW effort. Highlights among the sample are WISEP J075108.79-763449.6, a previously known T9 thought to be old due to its spectral energy distribution, which was found by Zhang et al. (2021b) to be part of a common proper motion pair with L34-26 A, a well-studied young M3 V star within 10 pc of the Sun; CWISE J054129.32-745021.5 B and 2MASS J05581644-4501559 B, two T8 dwarfs possibly associated with the very fast-rotating M4 V stars CWISE J054129.32745021.5 A and 2MASS J05581644-4501559 A; and UCAC3 52-1038 B, which is among the widest late-T companions to main-sequence stars, with a projected separation of ∼7100 au. The new benchmarks presented here are prime JWST targets, and can help us place strong constraints on the formation and evolution theory of substellar objects as well as on atmospheric models for these cold exoplanet analogs.
Thirteen New M Dwarf + T Dwarf Pairs Identified with WISE/NEOWISE
- Creators
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Marocco, Federico
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Kirkpatrick, J. Davy1
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Schneider, Adam C.
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Meisner, Aaron M.
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Popinchalk, Mark
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Gelino, Christopher R.
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Faherty, Jacqueline K.
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Burgasser, Adam J.
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Caselden, Dan
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Gagné, Jonathan
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Aganze, Christian
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Bardalez Gagliuffi, Daniella C.
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Casewell, Sarah L.
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Hsu, Chih-Chun
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Kiman, Rocio
- Eisenhardt, Peter R. M.
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Kuchner, Marc J.
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Stern, Daniel2, 1
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Gramaize, Léopold
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Sainio, Arttu
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Bickle, Thomas P.
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Rothermich, Austin
- Pendrill, William
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Thévenot, Melina
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Kabatnik, Martin
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Colombo, Giovanni
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Higashimura 東, Hiro 村滉
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Kiwy, Frank
- Marchese, Elijah J.
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Stevnbak Andersen, Nikolaj
- Tanner, Christopher
- Walla, Jim
- Wędracki, Zbigniew
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1.
California Institute of Technology
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2.
Jet Propulsion Lab
Abstract
Copyright and License
© 2024. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society. Original content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.
Acknowledgement
This work is based in part on observations made with the Spitzer Space Telescope, which was operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology under a contract with NASA.
CatWISE was funded by NASA under Proposal No. 16-ADAP16-0077 issued through the Astrophysics Data Analysis Program, and uses data from the NASA-funded WISE and NEOWISE projects.
The BYW team would like to thank the many Zooniverse volunteers who have participated in this project. We would also like to thank the Zooniverse web development team for their work creating and maintaining the Zooniverse platform and the Project Builder tools. This research was supported by NASA grant 2017-ADAP17-0067. This material is supported by the National Science Foundation under grant No. 2007068, 2009136, and 2009177.
This research made use of Lightkurve, a Python package for Kepler and TESS data analysis (Lightkurve Collaboration, 2018).
This publication makes use of VOSA, developed under the Spanish Virtual Observatory project supported by the Spanish MINECO through grant AyA2017-84089. VOSA has been partially updated by using funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme, under Grant Agreement No. 776403 (EXOPLANETS-A).
NIRES data presented herein were obtained at the W. M. Keck Observatory, which is operated as a scientific partnership among the California Institute of Technology, the University of California, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The Observatory was made possible by the generous financial support of the W. M. Keck Foundation. The authors recognize and acknowledge the significant cultural role and reverence that the summit of Maunakea has with the indigenous Hawaiian community, and that the W. M. Keck Observatory stands on Crown and Government Lands that the State of Hawai'i is obligated to protect and preserve for future generations of indigenous Hawaiians.
Facilities
WISE - Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, Spitzer (IRAC) - , Keck - :II (NIRES) - , Shane (Kast) - , SALT (RSS) - , Magellan - :Baade (FIRE) - , Gemini - :South (Flamingos-2) - , GALEX - Galaxy Evolution Explorer satellite
Software References
Spextool (Cushing et al. 2004); WISEView (Caselden et al. 2018); lightkurve (Lightkurve Collaboration et al. 2018); wotan (Hippke et al. 2019)
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Additional details
- ISSN
- 1538-4357
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- 16-ADAP16-0077
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- 2017-ADAP17-0067
- National Science Foundation
- AST-2007068
- National Science Foundation
- AST-2009136
- National Science Foundation
- AST-2009177
- Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades
- AyA2017-84089
- European Research Council
- 776403
- W. M. Keck Foundation
- Caltech groups
- Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC)