Kinematics and Luminosities of Brown Dwarfs with the BDNYC group

TL;DR

This paper proposes using Gaia data to identify brown dwarf members in moving groups, enabling better understanding of their evolution by overcoming Gaia's magnitude limitations.

Contribution

It introduces an indirect method leveraging Gaia data to study brown dwarfs through their association with moving groups, advancing empirical constraints on their evolution.

Findings

Identification of brown dwarf members in moving groups.

Potential to disentangle age and mass effects on spectra.

Improved empirical models of brown dwarf evolution.

Abstract

Due to magnitude limits, the Gaia survey will not delve as deeply into the local population of brown dwarfs as it will other stellar populations. While hundreds or thousands of brown dwarfs will be measured by Gaia, we propose a different, indirect method wherein studies using Gaia data will help teach us about brown dwarfs: Identifying moving groups that contain brown dwarfs. This use of Gaia data will directly help attempts to disentangle the effects of age and mass on brown dwarf spectra, which opens the possibilities for determining empirical constraints on brown dwarf evolution.