2009/12/18 by Brendan P. Bowler, Michael C. Liu, Trent J. Dupuy
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies #Brown dwarf #Luminosity #Luminosity function #Optical spectra #Proper motion #Sky #Spectral line #Stellar classification #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #astro-ph.SR
paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/0004-637x/710/1/45
published as Astrophys.J.710:45-50,2010 · Accepted by ApJ; 9 pages, 3 figures
arxiv created 2009/12/18 · openalex publication_date 2010/01/14 · arxiv updated 2014/11/20 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06
We present the discovery of a bright ( J = 13.1 mag) nearby L6 dwarf found in a search for L-type ultracool subdwarfs in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 7. SDSS J141624.08+134826.7 exhibits blue near-infrared colors compared to other optically typed L6 objects, but its optical and near-infrared spectra do not show metal-poor features characteristic of known L-type ultracool subdwarfs. Instead, SDSS J141624.08+134826.7 is probably a nearby example of the class of L dwarfs with low condensate opacities that exhibit unusually blue near-infrared colors for a given spectral type. Its deep 1.4 and 1.9 μm H 2 O absorption bands, weak 2.3 μm CO feature, strong 0.99 μm FeH band, and shallow optical TiO and CaH bands resemble the spectra of other blue L dwarfs which are believed to have unusually thin or large-grained cloud structure. The luminosity of SDSS J141624.08+134826.7 implies that it is either a high-mass brown dwarf or a low-mass star, depending on its age, and its UVW space motion suggests a thin-disk membership. With a spectrophotometric distance of 8.4 ± 1.9 pc, SDSS J141624.08+134826.7 is one of the nearest L dwarfs to the Sun and is therefore an excellent target for high resolution imaging, spectroscopic, and astrometric follow-up observations.