An Oasis in the Brown Dwarf Desert: Confirmation of Two Low-mass Transiting Brown Dwarfs Discovered by TESS

Abstract As the intermediate-mass siblings of stars and planets, brown dwarfs (BDs) are vital to study for a better understanding of how objects change across the planet-to-star mass range. Here, we report two low-mass transiting BD systems discovered by TESS, TOI-4776 (TIC 196286578) and TOI-5422 (TI 80611440), located in an underpopulated region of the BD mass–period space. These two systems have comparable masses but different ages. The younger and larger BD is TOI-4776 b with <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mn>32</mml:mn> <mml:mo>.</mml:mo> <mml:msubsup> <mml:mn>3</mml:mn> <mml:mrow> <mml:mo>−</mml:mo> <mml:mn>1.7</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow> <mml:mo>+</mml:mo> <mml:mn>1.8</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> </mml:msubsup> <mml:mspace width="0.25em"/> <mml:msub> <mml:mi>M</mml:mi> <mml:mi>Jup</mml:mi> </mml:msub> </mml:math> and 1.01 ± 0.05 R Jup , orbiting a late-F star about <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mn>4</mml:mn> <mml:mo>.</mml:mo> <mml:msubsup> <mml:mrow> <mml:mn>7</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow> <mml:mo>−</mml:mo> <mml:mn>2.5</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow> <mml:mo>+</mml:mo> <mml:mn>3.1</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> </mml:msubsup> </mml:math> Gyr old in an ∼10.41 day period. The older TOI-5422 b has <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mn>28</mml:mn> <mml:mo>.</mml:mo> <mml:msubsup> <mml:mn>0</mml:mn> <mml:mrow> <mml:mo>−</mml:mo> <mml:mn>1.2</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow> <mml:mo>+</mml:mo> <mml:mn>1.6</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> </mml:msubsup> <mml:mspace width="0.25em"/> <mml:msub> <mml:mi>M</mml:mi> <mml:mi>Jup</mml:mi> </mml:msub> </mml:math> and 0.81 ± 0.03 R Jup in an ∼5.38 day orbit around a subgiant star about <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mn>7</mml:mn> <mml:mo>.</mml:mo> <mml:msubsup> <mml:mrow> <mml:mn>6</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow> <mml:mo>−</mml:mo> <mml:mn>2.6</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow> <mml:mo>+</mml:mo> <mml:mn>2.5</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> </mml:msubsup> </mml:math> Gyr old. Compared with substellar mass–radius evolution models, TOI-4776 b has an inflated radius. In contrast, TOI-5422 b is slightly “underluminous” with respect to model predictions, which is not commonly seen in the BD population. In addition, TOI-5422 shows apparent photometric modulations with a rotation period of 10.8 ± 0.5 days found by rotation analysis, and the stellar inclination angle is obtained to be <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"> <mml:msub> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>I</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow> <mml:mo>⋆</mml:mo> </mml:mrow> </mml:msub> <mml:mo>=</mml:mo> <mml:mn>7</mml:mn> <mml:msubsup> <mml:mrow> <mml:mn>6</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow> <mml:mo>−</mml:mo> <mml:mn>12</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow> <mml:mo>+</mml:mo> <mml:mn>10</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> </mml:msubsup> </mml:math> deg. Therefore, it is likely that TOI-5422 b is spinning up the host star and its orbit is aligned with the stellar spin axis.