Authors

Y. V. Pavlenko; H. R. A. Jones; E. L. Martin; E. Guenther; M. A. Kenworthy;M. R. Z. Osorio

Comments

Authors: contact us about adding a copy of your work at STARS@ucf.edu

Abbreviated Journal Title

Mon. Not. Roy. Astron. Soc.

Keywords

stars : abundances; stars : evolution; stars : fundamental parameters; stars : individual : LP 944-20; stars : late-type; stars : low-mass; brown dwarfs; LOW-MASS STARS; LATE M-DWARFS; SPECTRAL ENERGY-DISTRIBUTIONS; YOUNG; BROWN DWARFS; L FIELD DWARFS; SUBSTELLAR OBJECTS; ULTRACOOL DWARFS; CARBON-MONOXIDE; MAIN-SEQUENCE; LINE-PROFILES; Astronomy & Astrophysics

Abstract

We present a new estimate of the lithium abundance in the atmosphere of the brown dwarf LP 944-20. Our analysis is based on a self-consistent analysis of low-, intermediate- and high-resolution optical and near-infrared spectra. We obtain log N(Li) = 3.25 +/not superset of 0.25 using fits of our synthetic spectra to the Li I resonance line doublet profiles observed with Very Large Telescope/Ultraviolet-Visual Echelle Spectrograph (VLT/UVES) and Anglo-Australian Telescope/Segmented Pupil/Image Reformatting Array of Lenslets (AAT/SPIRAL). This lithium abundance is over two orders of magnitude larger than previous estimates in the literature. In order to obtain good fits of the resonance lines of K I and Rb I and better fits to the TiO molecular absorption around the Li I resonance line, we invoke a semi-empirical model atmosphere with the dusty clouds located above the photosphere. The lithium abundance, however, is not changed by the effects of the dusty clouds. We discuss the implications of our estimate of the lithium abundance in LP 944-20 for the understanding of the properties of this benchmark brown dwarf.

Journal Title

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

Volume

380

Issue/Number

3

Publication Date

1-1-2007

Document Type

Article

Language

English

First Page

1285

Last Page

1296

WOS Identifier

WOS:000249844900039

ISSN

0035-8711

Download

Share

COinS