2023ApJ...959...86L -
Astrophys. J., 959, 86 (2023/December-3)
The First Y Dwarf Data from JWST Show that Dynamic and Diabatic Processes Regulate Cold Brown Dwarf Atmospheres.
LEGGETT S.K. and TREMBLIN P.
Abstract (from CDS):
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is now observing Y dwarfs, the coldest known brown dwarfs, with effective temperatures Teff ≲ 475 K. The first published observations provide important information: not only is the atmospheric chemistry out of equilibrium, as previously known, but the pressure-temperature profile is not in the standard adiabatic form. The rapid rotation of these Jupiter-size, isolated, brown dwarfs dominates the atmospheric dynamics, and thermal and compositional changes disrupt convection. These processes produce a colder lower atmosphere, and a warmer upper atmosphere, compared to a standard adiabatic profile. Leggett et al. presented empirical models where the pressure-temperature profile was adjusted so that synthetic spectra reproduced the 1 ≲ λ (μm) ≲ 20 spectral energy distributions of brown dwarfs with 260 ≤ Teff (K) ≤ 540. We show that spectra generated by these models fit the first JWST Y dwarf spectrum better than standard-adiabat models. Unexpectedly, there is no 4.3 μm PH3 feature in the JWST spectrum and atmospheres without phosphorus better reproduce the 4 μm flux peak. Our analysis of new JWST photometry indicates that the recently discovered faint secondary of the WISE J033605.05-014350AB system has Teff ≈ 295 K, making it the first dwarf in the significant luminosity gap between the 260 K WISE J085510.83-071442.5, and all other known Y dwarfs. The adiabat-adjusted disequilibrium-chemistry models are recommended for analyses of all brown dwarfs cooler than 600 K, and a grid is publicly available. Photometric color transformations are provided in an appendix.
Abstract Copyright:
© 2023. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society.
Journal keyword(s):
Y dwarfs - Brown dwarfs - Atmospheric structure - Infrared astronomy - Atmospheric dynamics - Atmospheric composition
Simbad objects:
8
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