Forty seven new T dwarfs from the UKIDSS Large Area Survey

TL;DR

This paper reports the discovery of 47 new T dwarfs from UKIDSS LAS, analyzes their spectral peculiarities, and estimates their space densities, providing insights into the substellar mass function.

Contribution

The study presents the largest sample of T dwarfs from UKIDSS LAS, identifies new spectral peculiarities, and constrains the substellar mass function at low masses.

Findings

47 new T dwarfs discovered in UKIDSS LAS

Identified spectral peculiarities linked to composition or gravity

Suggests a declining substellar mass function at lower masses

Abstract

We report the discovery of 47 new T dwarfs in the Fourth Data Release (DR4) from the Large Area Survey (LAS) of the UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey with spectral types ranging from T0 to T8.5. These bring the total sample of LAS T dwarfs to 80 as of DR4. In assigning spectral types to our objects we have identified 8 new spectrally peculiar objects, and divide 7 of them into two classes. H2O-H-early have a H2O-H index that differs with the H2O-J index by at least 2 sub-types. CH4-J-early have a CH4-J index that disagrees with the H20-J index by at least 2 subtypes. We have ruled out binarity as a sole explanation for both types of peculiarity, and suggest that they may represent hitherto unrecognised tracers of composition and/or gravity. Clear trends in z'(AB)-J and Y-J are apparent for our sample, consistent with weakening absorption in the red wing of the KI line at 0.77microns with decreasing effective temperature. We have used our sample to estimate space densities for T6-T9 dwarfs. By comparing our sample to Monte-Carlo simulations of field T dwarfs for various mass functions of the form phi(M) \propto M^-alpha, we have placed weak constraints on the form of the field mass function. Our analysis suggests that the substellar mass function is declining at lower masses, with negative values of alpha preferred. This is at odds with results for young clusters that have been generally found to have alpha > 0.