A New Method for Characterizing Very-Low-Mass Companions with Low Resolution Near-Infrared Spectroscopy

TL;DR

This paper introduces an efficient method for characterizing very low-mass companions using low-resolution near-infrared spectra, demonstrating high accuracy in determining temperature and gravity through simulated data analysis.

Contribution

The paper presents a new computational approach utilizing Markov Chain Monte Carlo techniques for analyzing low-resolution spectra of low-mass companions, improving parameter estimation accuracy.

Findings

Effective temperature uncertainties as low as ±30 K for some spectral types

Surface gravity constrained within 0.2-0.4 dex for mid-L to T dwarfs

High spectral coverage compensates for low resolution in characterization

Abstract

We present a new and computationally efficient method for characterizing very low mass companions using low resolution ($R\sim$30) near-infrared ($YJH$) spectra from high contrast imaging campaigns with integral field spectrograph (IFS) units. We conduct a detailed quantitative comparison of the efficacy of this method through tests on simulated data comparable in spectral coverage and resolution to the currently operating direct imaging systems around the world. In particular, we simulate Project 1640 data as an example of the use, accuracy, and precision of this technique. We present results from comparing simulated spectra of M, L, and T dwarfs with a large and finely-sampled grid of synthetic spectra using Markov Chain Monte Carlo techniques. We determine the precision and accuracy of effective temperature and surface gravity inferred from fits to PHOENIX dusty and cond, which we find reproduce the low-resolution spectra of all objects within the adopted flux uncertainties. Uncertainties in effective temperature decrease from $\pm$100-500 K for M dwarfs to as small as $\pm$30 K for some L and T spectral types. Surface gravity is constrained to within 0.2-0.4 dex for mid-L through T dwarfs, but uncertainties are as large as 1.0 dex or more for M dwarfs. Results for effective temperature from low-resolution $YJH$ spectra generally match predictions from published spectral type-temperature relationships except for L-T transition objects and young objects. Single-band spectra (i.e., narrower wavelength coverage) result in larger uncertainties and often discrepant results, suggesting that high contrast IFS observing campaigns can compensate for low spectral resolution by expanding the wavelength coverage for reliable characterization of detected companions. [Abstract truncated]