At present we are leading a study to search for outflows driven by young brown dwarfs using spectro-astrometry. Spectro-astrometry is a technique which allows one to recover spatial information from a simple spectrum beyond the limitations of the seeing of the observation. To date we have identified four BD outflows including one from a 24 Jupiter mass object 2MASS1207-3932. This brown dwarf is the lowest mass galactic object known so-far to drive an outflow. The brown dwarfs now confirmed to launch outflows are ρ-Oph 102 (Whelan et al. 2005), 2MASS1207-3932 (Whelan et al 2007.), LSRCr A1 and ISO-Cha I 217 (Whelan et al. 2008, in prep). The spectral types of these objects are M6.5, M8, M6.25 and M6.5 respectively. Our latest results have confirmed LSRCr A1 and ISO-Cha I 217 to be drivers of protostellar-like outflows. Above we show an artists impression of a BD outflow published by ESO in May 2007. Our results show that brown dwarfs which are strong accretors commonly launch outflows.

Above right we show the spectro-astrometric analysis of the Hα line in the spectrum of LSRCr A1. LSRCr A1 was one of the first BDs to be found to have bright FEL regions (Fernandez & Comeron 2001). From their spectra the above authors inferred the presence of an outflow however this could not be confirmed. The Hα line shows evidence of outflow both in the line profile (we see blue and red-shifted “humps” at a velocity of ~ +/- 80 kms-1) and from our spectro-astrometric analysis. We measure a bipolar offset of ~ 0.”06 in the line corresponding to the blue and red-shifted “humps”. We only see blue-shifted forbidden emission however we measure an offset in the [NII]λ6583 line corresponding to our results for Hα. This is the first detection of a BD outflow in Hα.

For further information on this project please see