# # Program information file # PROGRAM_ID 2021B041 PROGRAM_TITLE Discovering the youngest and distant brown dwarfs in the massive young cluster IC1848 with SpeX PROGRAM_INV1 Belinda Damian PROGRAM_INV2 Jessy Jose PROGRAM_INV3 Mizna K A PROGRAM_INV4 Saumya Gupta PROGRAM_INV5 Sudeshna Patra PROGRAM_SCICAT stellar PROGRAM_ABSTRACT_BEG Sub-stellar objects and brown dwarfs in particular are a unique system of celestial bodies which bridge the gap between planets and stars. The formation mechanism of brown dwarfs make them ideal targets to understand the evolution of both low-mass stars and planets. This evolutionary scenario can be empirically tested by estimating the range and form of the IMF of any star formation event which requires a complete census of the sub-stellar members in the region. Most of the earlier studies in this regard, were conducted in star forming regions around the solar neighbourhood constrained by the detection limits to observe highly reddened, distant and spatially crowded star forming regions beyond 500pc. But the outer Galaxy star forming environment is completely different from that of the solar neighbourhood. The young, distant [~2.2kpc], dense cluster IC1848-west with relatively negligible extinction [Av~1.5mag], located in the outer Galaxy is an excellent landscape to understand the role of external environmental factors on the formation and evolution of young sub-stellar objects and brown dwarfs. With our deep multi-wavelength SED analysis we identified 69 candidate brown dwarfs in the mass range of ~0.08-0.02 M_sun in the cluster. We hereby propose for a pilot survey of the brightest 10 candidate brown dwarf members of the cluster using SpeX. The Prism mode of Spex with wide spectral coverage is ideal to identify the broad spectral features of the targets such as the strong water-band absorption as well as the various spectral type sensitive and gravity insensitive indices which will be used for their spectral classification. If proven, the targets in this study will be the first ever brown dwarf detection in a cluster beyond the solar neighborhood. PROGRAM_ABSTRACT_END