JWST’s Constraints on the Substellar IMF in NGC 2024

Clicks: 2
ID: 321991
2026
Free PDF
Article Quality & Performance Metrics
Overall Quality
Not rated
Combines reader engagement with the AI quality analysis. This article has not been analysed, so there is no overall score — reader engagement is measured and shown alongside.
AI Quality Assessment
Not analyzed
Readership in this journal
Emerging

Ranked #899 of 913 articles by views in monthly notices of the royal astronomical society

Most read Least read

Bar heights use a square-root scale. Only the 120 most-read articles are drawn; the journal has 913 in total.

Mint this article as an NFT
Not yet minted

Create a permanent, verifiable on-chain record of this article on the Scimatic Network. The NFT is held in your Journament account, and you can withdraw it to your own wallet at any time.

5 SUSD one-off · no wallet required
Sign in to mint
Abstract
Abstract A recent study has reported the detection of a turnover in the initial mass function (IMF) below 12 MJup and the possible detection of a minimum mass near 3 MJup in the heavily embedded cluster NGC 2024 (<1 Myr), which was based on a sample of brown dwarf candidates in NIRCam images from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). I have used those NIRCam data in conjunction with archival spectra from JWST’s Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) to constrain the substellar IMF in NGC 2024. I present NIRSpec data for 87 sources, 67 of which are within the NIRCam field. Based on those spectra and data from previous studies (e.g., X-ray emission), I have classified 45 of the NIRSpec targets as members of NGC 2024, 17 of which have spectral types indicative of brown dwarfs (M6.5–L; 13 are within NIRCam). The latter have mass estimates as low as ~4 MJup according to theoretical evolutionary models. There remain a few photometric candidates lacking spectra that extend down to the completeness limit of the images (≳2 MJup for AK ≳ 1), so the minimum mass of the IMF has not been detected. It is not possible to measure a reliable substellar IMF from the NIRCam images because of the small number of brown dwarfs encompassed by them, a bias against objects at lower masses due to the high extinctions, and incompleteness at ≳ 10 MJup due to the saturation limit. Thus, there is no evidence in the JWST data for a turnover below 12 MJup.
Reference Key
openalex_W7170036498 Use this key to autocite in the manuscript while using SciMatic Manuscript Manager or Thesis Manager
Authors K. L. Luhman
Journal monthly notices of the royal astronomical society
Year 2026
DOI
10.1093/mnras/stag1383
URL
https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stag1383
Keywords Keywords not found

Citations

No citations found. To add a citation, contact the admin at info@scimatic.org

Comments

No comments yet. Be the first to comment on this article.