Back to Search
Start Over
On the Existence of Brown Dwarfs More Massive than the Hydrogen Burning Limit
- Source :
- The Astrophysical Journal. 871:227
- Publication Year :
- 2019
- Publisher :
- American Astronomical Society, 2019.
-
Abstract
- Almost by definition brown dwarfs are objects with masses below the hydrogen burning limit, around $0.07\ M_\odot$. Below this mass, objects never reach a steady state where they can fuse hydrogen. Here we demonstrate, in contrast to this traditional view, that brown dwarfs with masses greater than the hydrogen burning limit may in principle exist in the universe. These objects, which we term "overmassive brown dwarfs" form a continuous sequence with traditional brown dwarfs in any property (mass, effective temperature, radius, luminosity). To form an overmassive brown dwarf, mass must be added sufficiently slowly to a sufficiently old traditional brown dwarf below the hydrogen burning limit. We identify mass transfer in binary brown dwarf systems via Roche lobe overflow driven by gravitational waves to be the most plausible mechanism to produce the bulk of the putative overmassive brown dwarf population.<br />Comment: Resubmitted to AAS Journals after revisions
- Subjects :
- 010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences
Hydrogen
Population
Brown dwarf
FOS: Physical sciences
chemistry.chemical_element
Astrophysics::Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics
Astrophysics
01 natural sciences
Luminosity
0103 physical sciences
Astrophysics::Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
Roche lobe
education
010303 astronomy & astrophysics
Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)
Astrophysics::Galaxy Astrophysics
0105 earth and related environmental sciences
Physics
education.field_of_study
Gravitational wave
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Radius
Effective temperature
Astrophysics - Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
chemistry
Space and Planetary Science
Astrophysics::Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 15384357
- Volume :
- 871
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- The Astrophysical Journal
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....1f97cd0ca06753c62e080a48393932e7