Spitzer photometry of wise-selected brown dwarf and hyper-luminous infrared galaxy candidates

Roger L. Griffith, J. Davy Kirkpatrick, Peter R.M. Eisenhardt, Christopher R. Gelino, Michael C. Cushing, Dominic Benford, Andrew Blain, Carrie R. Bridge, Martin Cohen, Roc M. Cutri, Emilio Donoso, Thomas H. Jarrett, Carol Lonsdale, Gregory MacE, A. Mainzer, Ken Marsh, Deborah Padgett, Sara Petty, Michael E. Ressler, Michael F. SkrutskieSpencer A. Stanford, Daniel Stern, Chao Wei Tsai, Edward L. Wright, Jingwen Wu, Lin Yan

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

28 Scopus citations

Abstract

We present Spitzer 3.6 and 4.5μm photometry and positions for a sample of 1510 brown dwarf candidates identified by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) all-sky survey. Of these, 166 have been spectroscopically classified as objects with spectral types M(1), L(7), T(146), and Y(12). Sixteen other objects are non-(sub)stellar in nature. The remainder are most likely distant L and T dwarfs lacking spectroscopic verification, other Y dwarf candidates still awaiting follow-up, and assorted other objects whose Spitzer photometry reveals them to be background sources. We present a catalog of Spitzer photometry for all astrophysical sources identified in these fields and use this catalog to identify seven fainter (4.5μm17.0mag) brown dwarf candidates, which are possibly wide-field companions to the original WISE sources. To test this hypothesis, we use a sample of 919 Spitzer observations around WISE-selected high-redshift hyper-luminous infrared galaxy candidates. For this control sample, we find another six brown dwarf candidates, suggesting that the seven companion candidates are not physically associated. In fact, only one of these seven Spitzer brown dwarf candidates has a photometric distance estimate consistent with being a companion to the WISE brown dwarf candidate. Other than this, there is no evidence for any widely separated (>20AU) ultra-cool binaries. As an adjunct to this paper, we make available a source catalog of ∼7.33× 10 5 objects detected in all of these Spitzer follow-up fields for use by the astronomical community. The complete catalog includes the Spitzer 3.6 and 4.5μm photometry, along with positionally matched B and R photometry from USNO-B; J, H, and Ks photometry from Two Micron All-Sky Survey; and W1, W2, W3, and W4 photometry from the WISE all-sky catalog.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number148
JournalAstronomical Journal
Volume144
Issue number5
DOIs
StatePublished - Nov 2012
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • brown dwarfs
  • galaxies: evolution
  • galaxies: high-redshift
  • galaxies: photometry

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Astronomy and Astrophysics
  • Space and Planetary Science

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