Paper detail

Probing brown dwarf formation mechanisms with Gaia

One of the fundamental questions in star formation is whether or not brown dwarfs form in the same way as stars, or more like giant planets. If their formation scenarios are different, we might expect brown dwarfs to have a different spatial distribution to stars in nearby star-forming regions. In this contribution, we discuss methods to look for differences in their spatial distributions and show that in the only nearby star-forming region with a significantly different spatial distribution (the Orion Nebula Cluster), this is likely due to dynamical evolution. We then present a method for unravelling the past dynamical history of a star-forming region, and show that in tandem with Gaia, we will be able to discern whether observed differences are due to distinct formation mechanisms for brown dwarfs compared to stars.