TY - JOUR
T1 - CWISE J014611.20-050850.0AB
T2 - The Widest Known Brown Dwarf Binary in the Field
AU - Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 Collaboration
AU - Softich, Emma
AU - Schneider, Adam C.
AU - Patience, Jennifer
AU - Burgasser, Adam J.
AU - Shkolnik, Evgenya
AU - Faherty, Jacqueline K.
AU - Caselden, Dan
AU - Meisner, Aaron M.
AU - Kirkpatrick, J. Davy
AU - Kuchner, Marc J.
AU - Gagné, Jonathan
AU - Gagliuffi, Daniella Bardalez
AU - Cushing, Michael C.
AU - Casewell, Sarah L.
AU - Aganze, Christian
AU - Hsu, Chih Chun
AU - Andersen, Nikolaj Stevnbak
AU - Kiwy, Frank
AU - Thévenot, Melina
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2022. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society.
PY - 2022/2/1
Y1 - 2022/2/1
N2 - While stars are often found in binary systems, brown dwarf binaries are much rarer. Brown dwarf-brown dwarf pairs are typically difficult to resolve because they often have very small separations. Using brown dwarfs discovered with data from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) via the Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 citizen science project, we inspected other, higher-resolution, sky surveys for overlooked cold companions. During this process, we discovered the brown dwarf binary system CWISE J0146-0508AB, which we find has a very small chance alignment probability based on the similar proper motions of the components of the system. Using follow-up near-infrared spectroscopy with Keck/NIRES, we determined component spectral types of L4 and L8 (blue), making CWISE J0146-0508AB one of only a few benchmark systems with a blue L dwarf. At an estimated distance of ∼40 pc, CWISE J0146-0508AB has a projected separation of ∼129 au, making it the widest-separation brown dwarf pair found to date. We find that such a wide separation for a brown dwarf binary may imply formation in a low-density star-forming region.
AB - While stars are often found in binary systems, brown dwarf binaries are much rarer. Brown dwarf-brown dwarf pairs are typically difficult to resolve because they often have very small separations. Using brown dwarfs discovered with data from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) via the Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 citizen science project, we inspected other, higher-resolution, sky surveys for overlooked cold companions. During this process, we discovered the brown dwarf binary system CWISE J0146-0508AB, which we find has a very small chance alignment probability based on the similar proper motions of the components of the system. Using follow-up near-infrared spectroscopy with Keck/NIRES, we determined component spectral types of L4 and L8 (blue), making CWISE J0146-0508AB one of only a few benchmark systems with a blue L dwarf. At an estimated distance of ∼40 pc, CWISE J0146-0508AB has a projected separation of ∼129 au, making it the widest-separation brown dwarf pair found to date. We find that such a wide separation for a brown dwarf binary may imply formation in a low-density star-forming region.
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U2 - 10.3847/2041-8213/ac51d8
DO - 10.3847/2041-8213/ac51d8
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85125750892
SN - 2041-8205
VL - 926
JO - Astrophysical Journal Letters
JF - Astrophysical Journal Letters
IS - 2
M1 - L12
ER -