Revealing the substellar population of IC 1396: A spectroscopic survey of brown dwarfs in the region

Abstract We present a new spectroscopic view of the brown dwarf population in the young star-forming region IC 1396 and investigate the impact of environment on low-mass star formation. We use deep optical photometry from Subaru-HSC to identify the candidate low-mass stars and brown dwarfs in the region. Our follow-up low-resolution spectroscopic survey with GTC-EMIR and IRTF-SpeX has identified 32 new members in the region with spectral types between M3 and M9, among which 25 are brown dwarfs with spectral types M6 or later. We use the BT-Settl atmospheric models to derive the effective temperatures of the members. Using a comprehensive catalogue of known members and candidates, we estimate the star to brown dwarf ratio for IC 1396 to be 5.0±0.4, for a mass range between 1-0.03 M⊙. This ratio is largely consistent with measurements in other young clusters spanning a range of UV radiation fields and stellar densities, supporting formation scenarios in which the relative abundance of brown dwarfs is not strongly influenced by the local environmental conditions.