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# Program information file
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PROGRAM_ID           2023A054
PROGRAM_TITLE        Characterizing Widely separated Benchmark Brown Dwarfs
PROGRAM_INV1         Austin Rothermich
PROGRAM_INV2         Jackie Faherty
PROGRAM_INV3         Emily Calamari
PROGRAM_INV4         Les Hamlet
PROGRAM_INV5         Marc Kuchner
PROGRAM_SCICAT       stellar
PROGRAM_ABSTRACT_BEG
Brown dwarfs are a class of object which forms similar to stars, yet lacks sufficient mass to sustain hydrogen fusion in their cores. Due to this lack of stable energy generating mechanism, brown dwarfs slowly radiate away their initial formation heat, creating a degeneracy between mass, age, and observables such as effective temperature. One way to break this degeneracy is to study brown dwarfs in binary systems with more easily characterized primaries. Using the properties of the primary star, it is then possible to anchor spectral features of the brown dwarf in the near-infrared using atmospheric retrieval techniques. For this proposal, we are prioritizing 37 brown dwarfs in widely separated binary systems. Through characterizing this sample, we will provide the necessary information and statistics needed to be able to utilize this population of benchmarks to calibrate the field. We propose 4 nights [or 8 half nights] to follow-up on this important sample with SpeX. We will work in the simplest prism mode, allowing us to obtain a 20-30 S/N spectrum in times ranging from 0.5-1.25 hours.
PROGRAM_ABSTRACT_END