Scientific article
English

X-ray emission from the young brown dwarfs of the Taurus Molecular Cloud

Published inAstronomy & astrophysics, vol. 468, no. 2, p. 391-403
Publication date2007
First online date2006-09-12
Abstract

The XMM-Newton Extended Survey of the TMC (XEST) is a large program designed to systematically investigate the X-ray properties of young stellar/substellar objects in the TMC. In particular, the area surveyed by 15 XMM-Newton pointings (of which three are archival observations), supplemented with one archival Chandra observation, allows us to study 17 BDs with M spectral types. Half of this sample (9 out of 17 BDs) is detected: 7 BDs are detected here for the first time in X-rays. We observed a flare from one BD. We confirm several previous findings on BD X-ray activity: a log-log relation between X-ray and bolometric luminosity for stars (with L*<10 Lsun) and BDs detected in X-rays: a shallow log-log relation between X-ray fractional luminosity and mass: a log-log relation between X-ray fractional luminosity and effective temperature: a log-log relation between X-ray surface flux and effective temperature. We find no significant log-log correlation between the X-ray fractional luminosity and EW(Halpha). Accreting and nonaccreting BDs have a similar X-ray fractional luminosity. The median X-ray fractional luminosity of nonaccreting BDs is about 4 times lower than the mean saturation value for rapidly rotating low-mass field stars. Our TMC BDs have higher X-ray fractional luminosity than BDs in the Chandra Orion Ultradeep Project. The X-ray fractional luminosity declines from low-mass stars to M-type BDs, and as a sample, the BDs are less efficient X-ray emitters than low-mass stars. We thus conclude that while the BD atmospheres observed here are mostly warm enough to sustain coronal activity, a trend is seen that may indicate its gradual decline due to the drop in photospheric ionization degree (abridged).

Keywords
  • Stars low-mass
  • X-Ray stars
Affiliation entities Not a UNIGE publication
Citation (ISO format)
GROSSO, Nicolas et al. X-ray emission from the young brown dwarfs of the Taurus Molecular Cloud. In: Astronomy & astrophysics, 2007, vol. 468, n° 2, p. 391–403. doi: 10.1051/0004-6361:20065559
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Additional URL for this publicationhttp://www.aanda.org/10.1051/0004-6361:20065559
Journal ISSN0004-6361
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