Parallaxes, Proper Motions, and Near-Infrared Photometry for 173 L and T Dwarfs From The US Naval Observatory Infrared Astrometry Program

TL;DR

This study provides high-precision near-infrared parallaxes and proper motions for 173 L and T dwarfs, including first measurements for 16 objects, and compares results with Gaia DR3 to validate astrometry.

Contribution

It offers the first parallax and proper motion data for 16 L/T dwarfs and enhances existing measurements with high precision, including a comparison with Gaia data and analysis of binarity effects.

Findings

First parallax/proper motion results for 16 objects.

High-precision astrometry for 116 objects previously measured.

Comparison with Gaia DR3 confirms accuracy and reveals binarity effects.

Abstract

We present near-infrared parallax and proper motion astrometry for 74 L-dwarfs and 99 T-dwarfs, as single objects or in binary systems, obtained with the ASTROCAM astrometric imager on the USNO, Flagstaff Station 1.55-m telescope over two observing periods. For all 173 objects the median number of observational epochs was 62 with a median time frame of 5.25 years, resulting in median uncertainties of $\sigma$($\pi_{abs}$) = 1.51 mas, $\sigma$($\mu_{abs}$) = 1.02 mas yr$^{-1}$, and $\sigma$($V_{\rm tan}$) = 1.01 km s$^{-1}$. Our observations provide the first parallax/proper motion results for 16 objects and the highest precision parallaxes/proper motions for an additional 116 objects. A serendipitous overlap of 40 objects with Gaia DR3 astrometry allows direct comparison and confirmation of our results, along with an investigation on the effects of resolved binarity on astrometric results. We also provide a uniform set of $J$-, $H$-, $K_{S}$-band photometry in the UKIRT/MKO system, most of it being from new observations. We use these results to examine objects included in this study of special-interest populations, consisting of binaries, wide companions, young objects, subdwarfs, and brown dwarf spectral standards.