http://arxiv.org/abs/1805.12143
Almost by definition brown dwarfs are objects with masses below the hydrogen burning limit, around $0.07 M_\odot$. Below this mass, objects never reach a steady state where they can fuse hydrogen. Here we demonstrate, in contrast to this traditional view, that brown dwarfs with masses greater than the hydrogen burning limit may in principle exist in the universe. These objects, which we term “overmassive brown dwarfs” form a continuous sequence with traditional brown dwarfs in any property (mass, effective temperature, radius, luminosity). To form an overmassive brown dwarf, mass must be added sufficiently slowly to a sufficiently old traditional brown dwarf below the hydrogen burning limit. We identify mass transfer in binary brown dwarf systems via Roche lobe overflow driven by gravitational waves to be the most plausible mechanism to produce the bulk of the putative overmassive brown dwarf population.
J. Forbes and A. Loeb
Fri, 1 Jun 18
12/56
Comments: Submitted to AAS Journals, comments welcome
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