Using Gaia to Observe Brown Dwarfs

Kinematics and Luminosities of Brown Dwarfs with the BDNYC group

Author:

Riedel

Abstract:

Due to magnitude limits, the Gaia survey will not delve as deeply into the local population of brown dwarfs as it will other stellar populations. While hundreds or thousands of brown dwarfs will be measured by Gaia, we propose a different, indirect method wherein studies using Gaia data will help teach us about brown dwarfs: Identifying moving groups that contain brown dwarfs. This use of Gaia data will directly help attempts to disentangle the effects of age and mass on brown dwarf spectra, which opens the possibilities for determining empirical constraints on brown dwarf evolution.