“Super Jupiters at Different Ages”

In recent years, several research teams have used kinematics paired with spectral and photometric peculiarities to identify seemingly field brown dwarfs that belong to young moving groups. This sample of warm (1200 - 2200 K) but extremely low mass ( 5 - 30 MJup) objects defines an intriguing bridge between giant exoplanets and substellar mass objects. Since 2012, we have been collecting uniform medium resolution (3000 - 6000) spectra of the population of so-called isolated super Jupiters in groups that range from 5 - 300 Myr. Using parallaxes and an abundance of observed data we create spectral energy distributions and derive semi-empirical effective temperatures. The vast collection of medium resolution data we have accumulated contains a wealth of detailed spectral information. In this talk I will show trends in molecular absorption and alkali line features identified as a function of effective temperature rather than spectral type. Binning the sample by age and effective temperature, I speculate that the diversity seen in the features results from variations in atmosphere conditions.


Please note: Should you require any reasonable accommodations to ensure equal access and opportunity related to this event please contact Stacy Tiburzi at 734-764-3440 or stibu@umich.edu.