Joe Filippazzo edited untitled.tex  almost 10 years ago

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Figure 1(a,b,c) shows $L_{bol}$ versus selected absolute magnitudes $M_J$, $M_{Ks}$ and $M_{W2}$ for the 59 field age, 27 low-g, and 11 NYMG member L dwarfs of our sample. The flux of low surface gravity (low-g) L dwarfs appears to be redistributed from the NIR into the MIR, primarily from J to W2, as compared to field age Ls of the same luminosity (Faherty et al. 2012, 2013; Liu et al. 2013; Zapaterio Osario et al. 2014; Gizis et al., submitted). Indeed we find low-g Ls are 0.5-1 magnitudes dimmer in $M_J$ and 0.3-0.6 magnitudes brighter in $M_{W2}$ (Filippazzo et al., in prep). This is probably due to absorption and scattering of light to longer wavelengths by diffuse, unsettled dust in the atmospheres of young objects. Additionally, $M_{Ks}$ magnitudes appear to be largely unaffected by surface gravity making it an ideal band from which to determine age-independent bolometric corrections for L dwarfs.   The plot of $L_{bol}$ versus spectral type (Figure 1d) shows most low-g, young, and field objects all lie along the same sequence. Qualitatively, low-g L dwarfs have larger radii than their field age counterparts of the same $L_{bol}$ so they must have cooler photospheres according to the Stefan-Boltzmann Law. Bolometric luminosities are one of the few direct measurements we can make for brown dwarfs for identification of substellar touchstones, however, effective temperatures ($T_{eff}$) can also be tightly constrained using evolutionary models while minimizing our assumptions about the source sources  (See Filippazzo et al., in prep). Preliminary results suggest that confirmed young objects are 100-400 K cooler than field age L dwarfs of the same spectral type. While the uncertainties on the radii of low-g (but not necessarily young) objects are large, they still fall below the track of "normal" Ls on the $T_{eff}$ versus spectral type plot (Filippazzo et al. in prep). Consequently, surface gravity must be taken into account when using spectral type as a proxy for $T_{eff}$. The reliance on an age insensitive temperature-spectral type relationship (Golimowski et al. 2004, Stephens et al. 2009) might explain why some young objects appear underluminous as compared to older L dwarfs of the same temperature.