Near infrared spectroscopy of M dwarfs. III. Carbon and oxygen abundances in late M dwarfs including the dusty rapid rotator 2MASSI J1835379+325954

TL;DR

This study determines carbon and oxygen abundances in late M dwarfs using near-infrared spectra, highlighting the effects of dust formation and rotation on spectral analysis, and confirming abundance trends across M dwarf types.

Contribution

It introduces a method to analyze C and O abundances in late M dwarfs considering dust effects and rotational broadening, extending previous work on earlier M types.

Findings

Dust significantly affects temperature and abundance measurements in late M dwarfs.

Rotational velocity influences equivalent width measurements and derived abundances.

C and O abundances in late M dwarfs are consistent with trends observed in earlier types.

Abstract

Carbon and oxygen abundances of eight late M dwarfs are determined based on the near IR spectra of medium resolution. Seven objects with T_eff above 2600K are analyzed with the dust-free models. The M8.5 dwarf 2MASSI J1835379+325954 whose T_eff is 2275K is analyzed by the dusty model, in which the surface temperature is higher by about 600K due to the blanketing effect of the dust, and C and O abundances are higher by 0.25 and 0.15dex, respectively, compared to the analysis by the dust-free model. Once dust forms in the photosphere, the dust works as a kind of thermostat and temperatures of the surface layers remain nearly the same as the condensation temperatures of the dust grains. For this reason, the temperatures of the surface layers of the dusty dwarfs are not sensitive to the fundamental parameters including T_eff. Also, 2MASS J1835379 +325954 is a rapid rotator, for which its EWs are thought to remain unchanged by the rotational broadening. This is, however, true only when the true continuum is well defined. Otherwise, the pseudo-continuum level depends on the rotational velocity and hence the EWs as well. For this reason, the derived abundances depend on the rotational velocity assumed: For the values of V_rot*sin(i)=37.6 and 44.0km/s available in the literature, the derived C and O abundances differ by 0.23 and 0.14dex, respectively, and we find that the higher value provides a better account of the observed spectrum. The resulting C and O abundances in our late M dwarfs show no systematic difference from our results for the early and middle M dwarfs, and confirm the higher O/C ratio at the lower metallicity. In late M dwarfs, CO and H2O remain as excellent abundance indicators of C and O, respectively, except for additional uncertainty due to the complexity associated with the dust formation in the latest M dwarfs.