Poster Abstracts - Kepler - NASA

POSTER ABSTRACTSP1020. POSTER SESSION IIUltracool dwarfs in Kepler Field of View R.Tata 1 and E.L. Martin 2 , 1 Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias; C/ ViaLactea s/n Tenerife Spain 38200; rrtata@iac.es , 2 INTA-CSIC Centro de Astrobiologia ege@cab.inta-csic.esIntroduction: Despite of the tremendous progress inthe discovery and understanding of ultracool dwarfs(very low-mass stars and brown dwarfs with spectraltypes later than about M6) in the last 2 decades,only ahandful of these objects have been detected at low galacticlatitudes (|b| < 5), and little is known about theirphotometric variability properties. We use selectioncriteria based onphotometry and proper motions toselect ultracool dwarf candidates from the Kepler InputCatalog (KIC). We have obtained follow-up lowresolutionoptical spectroscopy for 5 of these candidatesat the 4m Mayall telescope at KPNO which allowus to confirm that their spectral properties are those ofultracool dwarfs (4 late-M and one L-type). These candidatesprovide excellent targets for transit searchesand variability studies at the ultracool end of the spectrum.We estimate that, given the Kepler precisionexpected, for their brightness and their small radii, adetection of earth sized planets is feasible around them.Figure : A plot showing an L0 dwarf from literature(in yellow) overplotted against the spectrum of a candidateobserved at 4m Mayall Telescope (in white) inSeptember 2011 using RcSPEC.2011 Kepler Science Conference - NASA Ames Research Center 223