Isolated and Companion Young Brown Dwarfs in the Taurus and Chamaeleon Molecular Clouds
Motohide Tamura,
Yoichi Itoh,
*
Yumiko Oasa,
Tadashi Nakajima
Infrared imaging observations have detected a dozen faint young
stellar objects (YSOs) in the Taurus and Chamaeleon molecular clouds whose near-infrared colors are similar to those of classical T
Tauri stars (TTS). They are around four magnitudes fainter than low-luminosity YSOs in Taurus detected in earlier surveys and as much
as eight magnitudes fainter than typical TTS. The extreme faintness of the objects and their lower luminosity relative to previously identified brown dwarfs in the Pleiades indicate that these
faint YSOs are very young brown dwarfs on the order of 1 million years
old.
M. Tamura and T. Nakajima, National Astronomical
Observatory, Osawa 2-21-1, Mitaka, Tokyo 181-8588, Japan. Y. Itoh and
Y. Oasa, University of Tokyo, Osawa 2-21-1, Mitaka, Tokyo 181-8588, Japan.
*
Present address: Subaru Telescope, National Astronomical Observatory
of Japan, 650 North A'ohoku Place, Hilo, HI 96720.
