The current population of benchmark brown dwarfs

TL;DR

This paper reviews the current count and understanding of benchmark brown dwarfs, emphasizing their importance for calibrating models and measuring properties of distant populations in upcoming surveys.

Contribution

It provides an overview of the existing population of age benchmark brown dwarfs and discusses their significance for model calibration and future observations.

Findings

Over 700 brown dwarfs identified to date.

Benchmark brown dwarfs are crucial for calibrating models.

Future surveys will rely heavily on these benchmarks.

Abstract

The number of brown dwarfs (BDs) now identified tops 700. Yet our understanding of these cool objects is still lacking, and models are struggling to accurately reproduce observations. What is needed is a method of calibrating the models, BDs whose properties (e.g. age, mass, distance, metallicity) that can be independently determined can provide such calibration. The ability to calculate properties based on observables is set to be of vital importance if we are to be able to measure the properties of fainter, more distant populations of BDs that near-future surveys will reveal, for which ground based spectroscopic studies will become increasingly difficult. We present here the state of the current population of age benchmark brown dwarfs.