ADAPTIVE OPTICS IMAGING OF VHS 1256–1257: A LOW MASS COMPANION TO A BROWN DWARF BINARY SYSTEM

2016/01/13 by Jordan M. Stone, Andrew J. Skemer, Kaitlin M. Kratter +9 · 53 citations
Physics and Astronomy · Social Sciences · #Adaptive optics #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Brown dwarf #Educational Leadership and Practices #Low Mass #Parallax #Photometry (optics) #Stellar mass #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #astro-ph.EP #astro-ph.SR

paper · pdf · doi:10.3847/2041-8205/818/1/l12

published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters 818(1), L12 (IOP Publishing) · Accepted to ApJL

arxiv created 2016/01/13 · openalex publication_date 2016/02/04 · arxiv updated 2016/02/17 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06

Abstract

ABSTRACT Recently, Gauza et al. reported the discovery of a companion to the late M-dwarf, VHS J125601.92–125723.9 (VHS 1256–1257). The companion’s absolute photometry suggests its mass and atmosphere are similar to the HR 8799 planets. However, as a wide companion to a late-type star, it is more accessible to spectroscopic characterization. We discovered that the primary of this system is an equal-magnitude binary. For an age ∼300 Myr the A and B components each have a mass of , and the b component has a mass of , making VHS 1256–1257 only the third brown dwarf triple system. There exists some tension between the spectrophotometric distance of 17.2 ± 2.6 pc and the parallax distance of 12.7 ± 1.0 pc. At 12.7 pc VHS 1256–1257 A and B would be the faintest known M7.5 objects, and are even faint outliers among M8 types. If the larger spectrophotmetric distance is more accurate than the parallax, then the mass of each component increases. In particular, the mass of the b component increases well above the deuterium burning limit to and the mass of each binary component increases to . At 17.1 pc, the UVW kinematics of the system are consistent with membership in the AB Dor moving group. The architecture of the system resembles a hierarchical stellar multiple suggesting it formed via an extension of the star formation process to low masses. Continued astrometric monitoring will resolve this distance uncertainty and will provide dynamical masses for a new benchmark system.

Citations

• The Formation of Brown Dwarfs as Ejected Stellar Embryos
• THE HAWAII INFRARED PARALLAX PROGRAM. I. ULTRACOOL BINARIES AND THE L/T TRANSITION ,
• Detection of Nine M8.0–L0.5 Binaries: The Very Low Mass Binary Population and Its Implications for Brown Dwarf and Very Low Mass Star Formation
• Direct Imaging of Multiple Planets Orbiting the Star HR 8799
• Constraints on the formation mechanism of the planetary mass companion of 2MASS 1207334-393254
• First Light Adaptive Optics Images from the Keck II Telescope: A New Era of High Angular Resolution Imagery
• A Giant Planet Candidate near a Young Brown Dwarf

Cited by

• The Parallax of VHS J1256–1257 from CFHT and Pan-STARRS-1
• Banyan. X. Discovery of a Wide, Low-gravity L-type Companion to a Fast-rotating M3 Dwarf*
• The discrepancy between dynamical and theoretical mass in the triplet-system 2MASS J10364483+1521394
• As the Worlds Turn: Constraining Spin Evolution in the Planetary-mass Regime
• Corvus (constellation) [wikipedia]

Related

• On the masses, age, and architecture of the VHS J1256−1257AB b system
• The Parallax of VHS J1256-1257 from CFHT and Pan-STARRS 1
• The Parallax of VHS J1256–1257 from CFHT and Pan-STARRS-1
• Cool dwarfs in wide multiple systems: Paper 2: A distant M8.5V companion to HD 212168 AB
• Discovery of the Remarkably Red L/T Transition Object VHS J183135.58-551355.9