Protostars -- Oral Presentation

L1014-IRS: A proto-brown-dwarf in a starless core?

Tyler Bourke, SAO

A. Crapsi (Arcetri), P. Myers (SAO), D. Wilner (SAO), N. Evans (Texas), T. Huard (SAO), J. Jorgensen (SAO), C. Young (Texas)

Spitzer recently discovered a very low mass object in the nearby dark cloud L1014, which was previously thought to be starless. With the MMT and SMA we have confirmed that the source, L1014-IRS, is indeed protostellar and embedded within the cloud. It drives a very small, low mass molecular outflow detected in CO 2-1 which has carved out a cavity seen in near-infrared scattered light. The luminosity of L1014-IRS is only 0.025-0.05 Lsun, and the inferred mass is of order 25 M_Jupiter, implying that it is either (1) a very young protostar yet to accrete the bulk of its mass, or (2) the first detected of an embedded, very young brown dwarf. The new data will be presented and its implications discussed.