Document Type
Article
Publication Date
7-1-2022
Department
Physics and Astronomy
Abstract
Ultracool dwarfs (UCDs) represent a significant proportion of stars in the Milky Way, and deep samples of these sources have the potential to constrain the formation history and evolution of low-mass objects in the Galaxy. Until recently, spectral samples have been limited to the local volume (d < 100 pc). Here, we analyze a sample of 164 spectroscopically characterized UCDs identified by Aganze et al. in the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) WFC3 Infrared Spectroscopic Parallel Survey (WISPS) and 3D-HST. We model the observed luminosity function using population simulations to place constraints on scaleheights, vertical velocity dispersions, and population ages as a function of spectral type. Our star counts are consistent with a power-law mass function and constant star formation history for UCDs, with vertical scaleheights of 249 pc for late-M dwarfs, 153 pc for L dwarfs, and 175 pc for T dwarfs. Using spatial and velocity dispersion relations, these scaleheights correspond to disk population ages of 3.6 Gyr for late-M dwarfs, 2.1 Gyr for L dwarfs, and 2.4 Gyr for T dwarfs, which are consistent with prior simulations that predict that L-type dwarfs are on average a younger and less dispersed population. There is an additional 1–2 Gyr systematic uncertainty on these ages due to variances in age-velocity relations. We use our population simulations to predict the UCD yield in the James Webb Space Telescope PASSAGES survey, a similar and deeper survey to WISPS and 3D-HST, and find that it will produce a comparably sized UCD sample, albeit dominated by thick disk and halo sources.
Original Publication Information
Christian Aganze et al "Beyond the Local Volume. II. Population Scaleheights and Ages of Ultracool Dwarfs in Deep HST/WFC3 Parallel Fields." 2022 Astrophysical Journal 934(1): 1-24.
ThinkIR Citation
Aganze, Christian; Burgasser, Adam J.; Malkan, Mathew; Theissen, Christopher A.; Arevalo, Roberto A. Tejada; Hsu, Chih-Chun; Gagliuffi, Daniella C. Bardalez; Ryan, Russell E. Jr.; and Holwerda, Benne, "Beyond the Local Volume. II. Population Scaleheights and Ages of Ultracool Dwarfs in Deep HST/WFC3 Parallel Fields" (2022). Faculty and Staff Scholarship. 818.
https://ir.library.louisville.edu/faculty/818
DOI
10.3847/1538-4357/ac7053
ORCID
0000-0002-4884-6756
Comments
© 2022. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society.