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The Substellar Luminosity and Mass Functions of the Trapezium Cluster Down to the Deuterium Burning Limit

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 May 2016

August A. Muench
Affiliation:
Department of Astronomy, University of Florida, 211 SSRB, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA
Elizabeth A. Lada
Affiliation:
Department of Astronomy, University of Florida, 211 SSRB, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA
Charles J. Lada
Affiliation:
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, MS 72, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
João F. Alves
Affiliation:
European Southern Observatory, Karl-Schwartzschild-Strasse 2, 8574 Garching Germany

Abstract

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We have employed an advanced suite of Monte Carlo calculations to model the infrared luminosity function (KLF) of the Trapezium cluster and to derive its Sub-stellar Initial Mass Function down to the deuterium burning limit. Independent of the details, we find that sub-stellar objects can account for no more than ~ 22% of the total number of likely cluster members. This cluster's substellar IMF steadily declines in a power-law fashion over most of the brown dwarf regime, however the formation of a secondary peak in the cluster's substellar KLF suggests the existence of a corresponding secondary peak in the substellar IMF between 10 and 30 times the mass of Jupiter based upon the seemingly degenerate behavior of the theoretical substellar mass-luminosity relation.

Type
Part 2. Observations of Recently Born Substellar Objects
Copyright
Copyright © Astronomical Society of the Pacific 2001 

References

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