A Survey for H-alpha Emission from Late L dwarfs and T dwarfs

TL;DR

This study conducted a new optical survey of late L and T dwarfs to detect H-alpha emission, expanding the sample size, confirming detection rates, and providing new spectral standards, thereby enhancing understanding of magnetic activity in cool brown dwarfs.

Contribution

It presents the first extensive optical survey for H-alpha emission in late L and T dwarfs, confirming detection rates and establishing new spectral standards.

Findings

H-alpha detection rate of 9.2% for L and T dwarfs

First detection of H-alpha emission from 2MASS 0036+1821

Established optical standards for T3 and T4 spectral types

Abstract

Recently, studies of brown dwarfs have demonstrated that they possess strong magnetic fields and have the potential to produce radio and optical auroral emissions powered by magnetospheric currents. This emission provides the only window on magnetic fields in the coolest brown dwarfs and identifying additional benchmark objects is key to constraining dynamo theory in this regime. To this end, we conducted a new red optical (6300 - 9700 Angstrom) survey with the Keck telescopes looking for H-alpha emission from a sample of late L dwarfs and T dwarfs. Our survey gathered optical spectra for 29 targets, 18 of which did not have previous optical spectra in the literature, greatly expanding the number of moderate resolution (R~2000) spectra available at these spectral types. Combining our sample with previous surveys, we confirm an H-alpha detection rate of 9.2 (+3.5/-2.1) % for L and T dwarfs in the optical spectral range of L4 - T8. This detection rate is consistent with the recently measured detection rate for auroral radio emission from Kao et al. (2016), suggesting that geometrical selection effects due to the beaming of the radio emission are small or absent. We also provide the first detection of H-alpha emission from 2MASS 0036+1821, previously notable as the only electron cyclotron maser radio source without a confirmed detection of H-alpha emission. Finally, we also establish optical standards for spectral types T3 and T4, filling in the previous gap between T2 and T5.