The Substellar Luminosity and Mass Functions of the Trapezium Cluster Down to the Deuterium Burning Limit
- Author(s)
- August A. Muench, Elizabeth A. Lada, Charles J. Lada, João F. Alves
- Abstract
We have employed an advanced suite of Monte Carlo calculations to model
the infrared luminosity function (KLF) of the Trapezium cluster and to
derive its Sub-stellar Initial Mass Function down to the deuterium
burning limit. Independent of the details, we find that substellar
objects can account for no more than ˜22% of the total number of
likely cluster members. This cluster's substellar IMF steadily declines
in a power-law fashion over most of the brown dwarf regime, however the
formation of a secondary peak in the cluster's substellar KLF suggests
the existence of a corresponding secondary peak in the substellar IMF
between 10 and 30 times the mass of Jupiter based upon the seemingly
degenerate behavior of the theoretical substellar mass-luminosity
relation.%
- Organisation(s)
- Department of Astrophysics
- External organisation(s)
- Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, University of Florida, Gainesville
- Volume
- 211
- Pages
- 67
- Publication date
- 06-2003
- Peer reviewed
- Yes
- Austrian Fields of Science 2012
- 103004 Astrophysics
- Portal url
- https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/en/publications/the-substellar-luminosity-and-mass-functions-of-the-trapezium-cluster-down-to-the-deuterium-burning-limit(b7d63310-3e91-41a5-b0c6-373e32ca5e06).html