L dwarfs found in sloan digital sky survey commissioning imaging data

Xiaohui Fan, G. R. Knapp, Michael A. Strauss, James E. Gunn, Robert H. Lupton, Željko Ivezić, Constance M. Rockosi, Brian Yanny, Stephen Kent, Donald P. Schneider, J. Davy Kirkpatrick, James Annis, Steven Bastian, Eileen Berman, J. Brinkmann, István Csabai, Glenn R. Federwitz, Masataka Fukugita, Vijay K. Gurbani, G. S. HennessyRobert B. Hindsley, Takashi Ichikawa, D. Q. Lamb, Carl Lindenmeyer, P. M. Mantsch, Timothy A. Mckay, Jeffrey A. Munn, Thomas Nash, Sadanori Okamura, A. George Pauls, Jeffrey R. Pier, Ron Rechenmacher, Claudio H. Rivetta, Gary Sergey, Chris Stoughton, Alexander S. Szalay, Gyula P. Szokoly, Douglas L. Tucker, Donald G. York

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

116 Scopus citations

Abstract

This paper describes the discovery of seven dwarf objects of spectral type L (objects cooler than the latest M dwarfs) in commissioning imaging data taken by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Low-resolution spectroscopy shows that they have spectral types from L0 to L8. Comparison of the SDSS and the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) photometry for several of these objects indicates the presence of significant opacity at optical wavelengths. This comparison also demonstrates the high astrometric accuracy (better than 1″ for these faint sources) of both surveys. The L dwarfs are shown to occupy a distinctive region of color-color space as measured in the SDSS filters, which should enables their identification in a straightforward way. This should lead eventually to a complete sample of many hundreds of these low-mass objects, or about 1 per 15 deg2 to i′ ≈ 20, in the complete SDSS data set.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)928-935
Number of pages8
JournalAstronomical Journal
Volume119
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Feb 2000

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Astronomy and Astrophysics
  • Space and Planetary Science

Keywords

  • Stars: low-mass, brown dwarfs
  • Surveys

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