A new candidate brown dwarf from an infrared survey

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Abstract
We report the discovery at infrared wavelengths of a very cool field brown dwarf candidate. It has infrared colours J – H = 0.90 ± 0.19 and H – K = 0.83 ± 0.18, compared with the previously known coolest dwarf GD165B which has J – H = 1.01 ± 0.05 and H – K = 0.64 ± 0.05. Both are much redder than the expected colours J – H = 0.70 and H – K = 0.27 for stars of intermediate age with masses of 0.08 M⊙. Based on the colours and spectra of a probable companion star and by comparison with evolutionary models, we infer that the new brown dwarf candidate is of intermediate age with a mass of 0.071 –0.079 M⊙, a temperature of 1825 ± 300 K and a bolometric magnitude of 14.56 ± 0.35. Classification as a star or a brown dwarf depends on the adopted age and the evolutionary model used. The discovery of this object within an infrared field survey places the first lower limit on the space density for objects fainter than Mbol = 14, and suggests that the luminosity function does not fall dramatically into the brown dwarf regime.

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