LHS6343C: A Transiting Field Brown Dwarf Discovered by the Kepler Mission
Abstract
We report the discovery of a brown dwarf that transits one member of the M+M binary system LHS6343AB every 12.71 days. The transits were discovered using photometric data from the Kelper public data release. The LHS6343 stellar system was previously identified as a single high-proper-motion M dwarf. We use high-contrast imaging to resolve the system into two low-mass stars with masses 0.45 Msun and 0.36 Msun, respectively, with a projected separation of 55 arcsec. High-resolution spectroscopy shows that the more massive component undergoes Doppler variations consistent with Keplerian motion, with a period equal to the photometric transit period and an amplitude consistent with a companion mass of M_C = 61.6 +/- 2.2 Mjup. Based on an analysis of the Kepler light curve we estimate the radius of the companion to be R_C = 1.217 +/- 0.028 Rjup. Given the age of the system (> 1 Gyr), the radius of LHS6343C is much larger than predicted by interior structure models of brown dwarfs.Keywords
All Related Versions
This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: