A Spitzer Survey for Wide Substellar Companions to Nearby Stars
Open Access
Author:
Melso, Nicole Dyann
Area of Honors:
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Degree:
Bachelor of Science
Document Type:
Thesis
Thesis Supervisors:
Kevin Luhman, Thesis Supervisor Jane Camilla Charlton, Thesis Honors Advisor
Keywords:
brown dwarf binary low mass
Abstract:
We present search for brown dwarf companions to 135 nearby stars white dwarfs, and brown dwarfs with the Spitzer Space Telescope based on common proper motions. Included in this survey are the brown dwarfs WISE 1049-5319 A and B and WISE 0855-0714, which were recently discovered as the third and fourth closest systems to the Sun, respectively. We report the discovery of one new M dwarf companion to the white dwarf WD 1257-032, and we recover previously known companions to three other target stars. We do not find any companions in our images of WISE 1049-5319 A and B and WISE 0855-0714, which are capable of detecting objects as small as 1 Jupiter Mass at an age of 1 Gyr.
