A portrait of the rotation of Ultra-Cool Dwarfs revealed by TESS

TL;DR

This paper analyzes TESS light curves of 250 Gaia DR3 Ultra-Cool Dwarfs, revealing rotation periods, complex behaviors, and potential age-related trends, advancing understanding of UCD rotational properties.

Contribution

It provides the first comprehensive analysis of rotation signatures in a large sample of UCDs using TESS data, identifying rotation periods and behavioral patterns.

Findings

71 targets with unambiguous periodicities

Rotation periods range from 0.133 to 5.81 days

Distinct regimes in rotation related to stellar mass and age

Abstract

This study presents the results of a search for rotation signature in 250 Gaia DR3 Ultra-Cool Dwarfs (UCDs) with TESS light curves. We identified 71 targets with unambiguous periodicities, of which 61 present rotation signatures and a single source behavior, with periods between 0.133 and 5.81 days. Five UCDs show double-dip features, namely variations with two periods, one approximately double or half the other. The remaining ten UCDs with unambiguous variability present a likely non-single behavior. We also found 20 UCDs showing complex behavior in their light curves, with noticeable fluctuations and irregular structure, with a few exhibiting apparent changes in their temporal structure. The remaining 159 targets show noisy light curves corresponding to low-amplitude signals, whose temporal variation cannot be easily identified. The distribution of the UCDs with rotation signature in the CMD diagram points to a lack of rotating objects within about $11.5<M_{G}<12.5$ and $G-G_{RP}<1.5$ separating them into two regimes, one mainly composed of less massive late-M stars with $P_{rot} \geq 1.0$ d, and another mainly composed of more massive early-M stars with $P_{rot}<1.0$ d. It is important to emphasize that by separating stars into age intervals, one observes that UCDs with $P_{rot} \geq 1.0$ d tend to be located in regions of younger objects, and, in contrast, those with $P_{rot}<1.0$ d are mainly concentrated in regions of older objects. Whether these trends of stars contrasting the sample separation is physical or produced by observational biases is a question to be verified in future studies.