Bibcode
Barrado y Navascués, D.; Bouvier, J.; Stauffer, J. R.; Lodieu, N.; McCaughrean, M. J.
Bibliographical reference
Astronomy and Astrophysics, v.395, p.813-821 (2002)
Advertised on:
12
2002
Journal
Citations
61
Refereed citations
55
Description
We present a deep, wide-field optical survey of the young stellar
cluster Alpha Per, in which we have discovered a large population of
candidate brown dwarfs. Subsequent infrared photometric follow-up shows
that the majority of them are probable or possible members of the
cluster, reaching to a minimum mass of 0.035 Msun. We have
used this list of members to derive the luminosity and mass functions of
the substellar population of the cluster (alpha =0.59+/-0.05, when
expressed in the mass spectrum form phi ~ M-alpha ) and
compared its slope to the value measure for the Pleiades. This
comparison indicates that the two cluster mass functions are, indeed,
very similar. Based on observations collected with the Kitt Peak
National Observatory, USA, and the Hispano-German Observatory of Calar
Alto, Spain.