Accretion and Outflow Activity in Brown Dwarfs

An investigation of the magnetospheric accretion and outflow signatures in sub-stellar objects is a natural extension of similar studies conducted on classical T Tauri stars (CTTS), and helps understand if brown dwarfs (BDs) follow the same formation mechanism as stars. Over the past decade, evidence for accretion in very low-mass stars (VLMs) and BDs has been accumulated using various techniques, which indicates that the overall accretion characteristics are continuous across the sub-stellar boundary. Outflow activity in VLMs and BDs has been confirmed based on spectro-astrometry of forbidden emission lines observed in the optical, and in millimetre continuum images of CO J=2-1 emission. This review summarizes the past and current state of observational work on accretion and outflow activity in VLMs and BDs, particularly with the advent of new instruments such as VLT/X-Shooter which has allowed the study of several accretion and outflow indicators over a wider wavelength range.

The radial distribution of dust species in young brown dwarf disks

We present a study of the radial distribution of dust species in young brown dwarf disks. Our work is based on a compositional analysis of the 10 and 20 micron silicate emission features for brown dwarfs in the Taurus-Auriga star-forming region. A fundamental finding of our work is that brown dwarfs exhibit stronger signs of dust processing in the cold component of the disk, compared to the higher mass T Tauri stars in Taurus. For nearly all of our targets, we find a flat disk structure, which is consistent with the stronger signs of dust processing observed in these disks. For the case of one brown dwarf, 2M04230607, we find the forsterite mass fraction to be a factor of ~3 higher in the outer disk compared to the inner disk region. Simple large-scale radial mixing cannot account for this gradient in the dust chemical composition, and some local crystalline formation mechanism may be effective in this disk. The relatively high abundance of crystalline silicates in the outer cold regions of brown dwarf disks provides an interesting analogy to comets. In this context, we have discussed the applicability of the various mechanisms that have been proposed for comets on the formation and the outward transport of high-temperature material. We also present Chandra X-ray observations for two Taurus brown dwarfs, 2M04414825 and CFHT-BD-Tau 9. We find 2M04414825, which has a ~12% crystalline mass fraction, to be more than an order of magnitude brighter in X-ray than CFHT-BD-Tau 9, which has a ~35% crystalline mass fraction. Combining with previous X-ray data, we find the inner disk crystalline mass fractions to be anti-correlated with the X-ray strength.

Young Stellar Objects in NGC 6823

NGC 6823 is a young open cluster that lies at a distance of ~2 kpc in the Vulpecula OB1 association. Previous studies using CCD photometry and spectroscopy have identified a Trapezium system of bright O- and B-type stars at its center. We present optical, near-infrared and Spitzer photometric observations of the cluster. Our survey reaches down to I~22 mag and Ks~18 mag. There is significant differential reddening within the cluster. We find a bimodal distribution for Av, with a peak at ~3 mag and a broader peak at ~10 mag. We find a ~20% fraction of Class I/Class II young stellar objects (YSOs) in the cluster, while a large 80% fraction of the sources have a Class III classification. We have made use of the IPHAS survey in order to probe the strength in Halpha emission for this large population of Class III sources. Nearly all of the Class III objects have photospheric (r-Halpha) colors, implying an absence of Halpha in emission. This large population of Class III sources is thus likely the extincted field star population rather than the diskless YSOs in the cluster. There is a higher concentration of the Class I/II systems in the eastern region of the cluster and close to the central Trapezium. The western part of the cluster mostly contains Class III/field stars and seems devoid of disk sources. We find evidence of a pre-main sequence population in NGC 6823, in addition to an upper main-sequence population. The pre-main sequence population mainly consists of young disk sources with ages between ~1-5 Myr, and at lower masses of ~0.1-0.4 Msun. There may be a possible mass dependent age spread in the cluster, with the older stars being more massive than the younger ones. The presence of young disk sources in NGC 6823 indicates similar star formation properties in the outer regions of the Galaxy as observed for young clusters in the solar neighborhood.