A Novel Survey for Young Substellar Objects with the W band Filter.V. IC 348 and Barnard 5 in the Perseus Cloud

TL;DR

This study uses narrowband water absorption imaging to discover and confirm substellar objects, including brown dwarfs, in the Perseus star-forming complex, revealing their relation to molecular clouds and star formation processes.

Contribution

It introduces a water absorption filter technique for efficient detection of substellar objects and confirms new brown dwarfs in IC 348 and Barnard 5.

Findings

Confirmed three brown dwarfs in IC 348.

First brown dwarf discovered in Barnard 5.

Proposed star formation scenario influenced by OB association.

Abstract

We report the discovery of substellar objects in the young star cluster IC 348 and the neighboring Barnard 5 dark cloud, both at the eastern end of the Perseus star-forming complex. The substellar candidates are selected using narrowband imaging, i.e., on and off photometric technique with a filter centered around the water absorption feature at 1.45 microns, a technique proven to be efficient in detecting water-bearing substellar objects. Our spectroscopic observations confirm three brown dwarfs in IC 348. In addition, the source WBIS 03492858+3258064, reported in this work, is the first confirmed brown dwarf discovered toward Barnard 5. Together with the young stellar population selected via near- and mid-infrared colors using the Two Micron All Sky Survey and the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, we diagnose the relation between stellar versus substellar objects with the associated molecular clouds. Analyzed by Gaia EDR3 parallaxes and kinematics of the cloud members across the Perseus region, we propose the star formation scenario of the complex under influence of the nearby OB association.