Characterizing Young Substellar Objects with IGRINS


Thursday, 12 July 2018 8 a.m. — 9 a.m. MST

AURA Lecture Hall

NOIRLab South Colloquia
GREGORY MACE (University of Texas at Austin and Gemini South Visiting Astronomer)

The various stages of star formation (collapse, contraction, accretion, disk dissipation, and planet formation) are dictated by mass, but modified by character differences (magnetic field strength, rotational velocity, multiplicity) in ways that are not fully understood. The IGRINS YSO Survey permits the consistent analysis of young stellar and substellar objects in the ~0.5-5 Myr old Taurus and Ophiuchus star forming regions. Many of the objects in the IGRINS YSO Survey are included in surveys for other major science initiatives like ALMA, K2, Herschel, WISE, Gaia, JWST, and TESS. Operating at 1.45-2.5 microns with R~45,000, IGRINS uniquely complements these initiatives by probing the star-disk interface with enough resolution to distinguish between them. In 2018A IGRINS visited Gemini South for a 135 hour Large Program targeting Ophiuchus YSOs and prioritizing the lowest mass members spanning between 10-100 Jupiter masses. In this presentation I will review the modifications required to get IGRINS to Gemini and share some early science results on the substellar objects observed in Ophiuchus and within a few pc of the Sun.