Letter to the Editor

Discovery of very nearby ultracool dwarfs from DENIS^*

¹ Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Grenoble, Université Joseph Fourier, 38041 Grenoble Cedex 9, France e-mail: delfosse@obs.ujf-grenoble.fr
² Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, via Láctea, 38200 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain e-mail: ege@ll.iac.es
³ CFHT Corporation, 68–1238 Mamalahoa Highway, Kamuela, HI 96743, USA 


Corresponding author: T. R. Kendall, tkendall@obs.ujf-grenoble.fr

Received: 22 December 2003
Accepted: 7 February 2004

Abstract

We report new spectroscopic results, obtained with UKIRT/CGS4, of a sample of 14 candidate ultracool dwarfs selected from the DENIS (Deep Near-Infrared Survey of the Southern Sky) database. A further object, selected from the 2MASS Second Incremental Release, was observed at a later epoch with the same instrument. Six objects are already known in the literature; we re-derive their properties. A further four prove to be very nearby (10 pc) mid-to-late L-dwarfs, three unknown hitherto, two of which are almost certainly substellar. These findings increase the number of L-dwarfs known within ~10 pc by ~25%. The remainder of the objects discussed here are early L or very late M-type dwarfs lying between ~45 and 15 pc and are also new to the literature. Spectral types have been derived by direct comparison with J-, H- and K- band spectra of known template ultracool dwarfs given by Leggett et al. For the known objects, we generally find agreement to within ~1 subclass with previously derived spectral types. Distances are determined from the most recent M_J vs. spectral type calibrations, and together with our derived proper motions yield kinematics for most targets consistent with that expected for the disk population; for three probable late M-dwarfs, membership of a dynamically older population is postulated. The very nearby L-type objects discussed here are of great interest for future studies of binarity and parallaxes.