Cool Star Science with the FIRE Spectrograph

TL;DR

The FIRE spectrograph on the Magellan telescope enables detailed near-infrared studies of cool stars and brown dwarfs, providing new insights into their atmospheres, accretion processes, and debris disks.

Contribution

This paper presents the first science results from FIRE, demonstrating its capabilities for cool star research and revealing new phenomena in brown dwarfs and white dwarf systems.

Findings

Evidence of clouds in a planetary-mass brown dwarf

Detection of accretion and jets in T Tauri star TWA 30B

Near-infrared detection of a debris disk around white dwarf GALEX 1931+01

Abstract

The Folded-port InfraRed Echellette (FIRE) has recently been commissioned on the Magellan 6.5m Baade Telescope. This single object, near-infrared spectrometer simultaneously covers the 0.85-2.45 micron window in both cross-dispersed (R ~ 6000) or prism-dispersed (R ~ 250-350) modes. FIRE's compact configuration, high transmission optics and high quantum efficiency detector provides considerable sensitivity in the near-infrared, making it an ideal instrument for studies of cool stars and brown dwarfs. Here we present some of the first cool star science results with FIRE based on commissioning and science verification observations, including evidence of clouds in a planetary-mass brown dwarf, accretion and jet emission in the low-mass T Tauri star TWA 30B, radial velocities of T-type brown dwarfs, and near-infrared detection of a debris disk associated with the DAZ white dwarf GALEX 1931+01.