2003/05/30 by Ray Jayawardhana, D. R. Ardila, David R. Ardila +4 · 3 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astro and Planetary Science #Astronomy #Astrophysics #Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies #Brown dwarf #Infrared #Infrared telescope #Physics #Planetary system #Stars #Stellar classification #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #T Tauri star #Telescope #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/377144
published as Astron.J.126:1515,2003 · accepted for publication in The Astronomical Journal
arxiv created 2003/05/30 · openalex publication_date 2003/08/29 · arxiv updated 2016/08/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Recent surveys have identified substellar objects down to planetary masses in nearby star-forming regions. Reliable determination of the disk frequency in young brown dwarfs is of paramount importance to understanding their origin. Here we report the results of a systematic study of infrared L -band (3.8 μm) disk excess in ∼50 spectroscopically confirmed objects near and below the substellar boundary in several young clusters. Our observations, using the ESO Very Large Telescope, Keck I, and the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility, reveal that a significant fraction of brown dwarfs harbor disks at a very young age. Their inner disk lifetimes do not appear to be vastly different from those of disks around T Tauri stars. Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that substellar objects form via a mechanism similar to solar-mass stars.