Sub-brown dwarf
A sub-brown dwarf or planetary-mass brown dwarf is an astronomical object formed in the same manner as stars and brown dwarfs (i.e. through the collapse of a gas cloud) but that has a mass below the limiting mass for thermonuclear fusion of deuterium (about 13 MJ).[1] Some researchers call them free-floating planets[2] whereas others call them planetary-mass brown dwarfs.[3]
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Sub-brown dwarf or free-floating planet
Sub-brown dwarfs are formed in the manner of stars, through the collapse of a gas cloud (perhaps with the help of photo-erosion) but there is no consensus amongst astronomers on whether the formation process should be taken into account when classifying an object as a planet.[4] Free-floating sub-brown dwarfs can be observationally indistinguishable from rogue planets that originally formed around a star and were ejected from orbit, and on the other hand a sub-brown dwarf formed free-floating in a star cluster may get captured into orbit around a star. A definition for the term "sub-brown dwarf" was put forward by the IAU Working Group on Extra-Solar Planets (WGESP), which defined it as a free-floating body found in young star clusters below the lower mass cut-off of brown dwarfs.[5]
Lower mass limit
The smallest mass of gas cloud that could collapse to form a sub-brown dwarf is about 1 Jupiter mass (MJ).[6] This is because to collapse by gravitational contraction requires radiating away energy as heat and this is limited by the opacity of the gas.[7] A 3 MJ candidate is described in the paper.[8]
List of possible sub-brown dwarfs
Orbiting one or more stars
There is no consensus whether these companions of stars should be considered sub-brown dwarfs or planets.
- WD 0806-661 B
- DT Virginis c
- FW Tauri b
- ROXs 42b b
Orbiting a brown dwarf
There is no consensus whether these companions of brown dwarfs should be considered sub-brown dwarfs or planets.
- The 5–10MJ companion of 2MASS J04414489+2301513
- 2M1207b
Free-floating
- WISE 0855–0714 between 3-10 MJ about 7 light years from Earth.
- S Ori 52
- UGPS J072227.51-054031.2
- Cha 110913-773444
- CFBDSIR2149-0403
- OTS 44
- PSO J318.5-22
See also
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Look up sub-brown dwarf in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. |
References
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- ↑ Working Group on Extrasolar Planets – Definition of a "Planet" POSITION STATEMENT ON THE DEFINITION OF A "PLANET" (IAU)
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- ↑ What is a Planet? Debate Forces New Definition, by Robert Roy Britt, 02 November 2000
- ↑ IAU WGESP, 'Position Statement on the Definition of "Planet"', 28 February 2003
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