A&A 584, A104 (2015) Astronomy DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/201526899 & c ESO 2015 Astrophysics Rotation periods and astrometric motions of the Luhman 16AB brown dwarfs by high-resolution lucky-imaging monitoring?;?? L. Mancini1;2, P. Giacobbe2, S. P. Littlefair3, J. Southworth4, V. Bozza5;6, M. Damasso2, M. Dominik7, M. Hundertmark7, U. G. Jørgensen8, D. Juncher8, A. Popovas8, M. Rabus9;1, S. Rahvar10, R. W. Schmidt11, J. Skottfelt12;8, C. Snodgrass13, A. Sozzetti2, K. Alsubai14, D. M. Bramich14, S. Calchi Novati15;5;16, S. Ciceri1, G. D’Ago16;5;6, R. Figuera Jaimes7;17, P. Galianni7, S.-H. Gu18;19, K. Harpsøe8, T. Haugbølle8, Th. Henning1, T. C. Hinse20, N. Kains21, H. Korhonen22;8, G. Scarpetta5;6;16, D. Starkey7, J. Surdej23, X.-B. Wang18;19, and O. Wertz23 1 Max-Planck Institute for Astronomy, Königstuhl 17, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany e-mail: [email protected] 2 INAF–Osservatorio Astrofisico di Torino, via Osservatorio 20, 10025 Pino Torinese, Italy 3 Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S3 7RH, UK 4 Astrophysics Group, Keele University, Keele ST5 5BG, UK 5 Department of Physics, University of Salerno, Via Giovanni Paolo II 132, 84084 Fisciano (SA), Italy 6 Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Napoli, 80126 Napoli, Italy 7 SUPA, University of St Andrews, School of Physics & Astronomy, North Haugh, St Andrews, Fife KY16 9SS, UK 8 Niels Bohr Institute & Centre for Star and Planet Formation, University of Copenhagen, Østervoldgade 5, 1350 Copenhagen K, Denmark 9 Instituto de Astrofísica, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Av. Vicuña Mackenna 4860, 7820436 Macul, Santiago, Chile 10 Department of Physics, Sharif University of Technology, PO Box 11155-9161, Tehran, Iran 11 Astronomisches Rechen-Institut, Zentrum für Astronomie, Universität Heidelberg, Mönchhofstrasse 12-14, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany 12 Centre for Electronic Imaging, Dept. of Physical Sciences, The Open University, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA, UK 13 Planetary and Space Sciences, Dept. of Physical Sciences, The Open University, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA, UK 14 Qatar Environment and Energy Research Institute, Qatar Foundation, Tornado Tower, Floor 19, PO Box 5825, Doha, Qatar 15 NASA Exoplanet Science Institute, MS 100-22, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA 16 Istituto Internazionale per gli Alti Studi Scientifici (IIASS), 84019 Vietri Sul Mare (SA), Italy 17 European Southern Observatory, Karl-Schwarzschild-Strasse 2, 85748 Garching bei München, Germany 18 Yunnan Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 650011 Kunming, PR China 19 Key Laboratory for the Structure and Evolution of Celestial Objects, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 650011 Kunming, PR China 20 Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute, 305-348 Daejeon, Republic of Korea 21 Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA 22 Finnish Centre for Astronomy with ESO (FINCA), University of Turku, Väisäläntie 20, 21500 Piikkiö, Finland 23 Institut d’Astrophysique et de Géophysique, Université de Liège, 4000 Liège, Belgium Received 5 July 2015 / Accepted 25 October 2015 ABSTRACT Context. Photometric monitoring of the variability of brown dwarfs can provide useful information about the structure of clouds in their cold atmospheres.The brown-dwarf binary system Luhman 16AB is an interesting target for such a study, because its components stand at the L/T transition and show high levels of variability. Luhman 16AB is also the third closest system to the solar system, which allows precise astrometric investigations with ground-based facilities. Aims. The aim of the work is to estimate the rotation period and study the astrometric motion of both components. Methods. We have monitored Luhman 16AB over a period of two years with the lucky-imaging camera mounted on the Danish 1.54 m telescope at La Silla, through a special i + z long-pass filter, which allowed us to clearly resolve the two brown dwarfs into single objects. An intense monitoring of the target was also performed over 16 nights, in which we observed a peak-to-peak variability of 0:20 ± 0:02 mag and 0:34 ± 0:02 mag for Luhman 16A and 16B, respectively. Results. We used the 16-night time-series data to estimate the rotation period of the two components. We found that Luhman 16B rotates with a period of 5:1 ± 0:1 h, in very good agreement with previous measurements. For Luhman 16A, we report that it rotates more slowly than its companion, and even though we were not able to get a robust determination, our data indicate a rotation period of roughly 8 h. This implies that the rotation axes of the two components are well aligned and suggests a scenario in which the two objects underwent the same accretion process. The 2-year complete data set was used to study the astrometric motion of Luhman 16AB. We predict a motion of the system that is not consistent with a previous estimate based on two months of monitoring, but cannot confirm or refute the presence of additional planetary-mass bodies in the system. Key words. binaries: visual – brown dwarfs – stars: variables: general – techniques: photometric – techniques: image processing ? Based on data collected by MiNDSTEp with the Danish 1.54 m telescope at the ESO La Silla Observatory. ?? The photometry is only available at the CDS via anonymous ftp to cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr (130.79.128.5) or via http://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/qcat?J/A+A/584/A104 Article published by EDP Sciences A104, page 1 of9 A&A 584, A104 (2015) 1. Introduction useful information was extracted from the CRIRES data, which show that CO and H2O absorption features dominate the spec- Brown dwarfs are very intriguing astrophysical objects owing to tra of both the components. The projected rotational velocities their mass range between the gas planets and the lightest M-type were estimated to be 17:66 ± 0:1 km s−1 and 26:16 ± 0:2 km s−1 stars. They are classified into M!L!T!Y classes based on for Luhman 16A and 16B, respectively. This implies that com- their spectral characteristics. Since brown dwarfs are not mas- ponent B should have a rotational axis inclined by less than ∼30◦ sive enough to trigger sufficient nuclear fusion reaction rates in to the plane of the sky, assuming that its radius is roughly 1 RJup their cores to sustain hydrostatic equilibrium, they are destined (Crossfield et al. 2014). to gradually cool, and this classification also represents an evolu- Another peculiarity of Luhman 16 is that, after tionary sequence (e.g. Kirkpatrick et al. 1999, 2012; Burgasser Alpha Centari AB, it is the nearest known binary system to et al. 2006; Cushing et al. 2011). As a brown dwarf cools, the the solar system at ∼2 pc. This occurrence allows astromet- temperature and gas pressure of its photosphere become such ric studies to be performed for the two components of the that it starts to be progressively dominated by molecular gas. system, in order to detect their orbital motion and measure When an L-type brown dwarf cools down to hot-Jupiter tempera- their parallax. This was done by Boffin et al.(2014), who tures, the molecular gas can condense into thin or thick clouds or monitored Luhman 16AB for a period of two months with a mixture of them. Aerosols can form in its atmosphere through the FORS2 instrument at the ESO-VLT, measuring a distance the condensation of very refractory species, such as metallic of 2:020 ± 0:019 pc and a proper motion of about 2.800/year. oxides, silicates, and iron (Lodders 1999; Marley et al. 2002; Moreover, they found that the relative orbital motion of the two Woitke & Helling 2003, 2004; Burrows et al. 2006; Helling objects is perturbed, suggesting the presence of a substellar ≈ − et al. 2008). At the L-to-T class transition (Teff 1200 1300 K), companion around one of the two components. However, the these clouds could break up and unveil the naked photosphere, existence of a substellar object in the system was not confirmed causing a brown dwarf to be very variable over short timescales by Melso et al.(2015), who based on multi-epoch images from ∼ ( h), depending on the inclination angle of the rotation axis the Spitzer Space Telescope and adaptive optics images from (Ackerman & Marley 2001; Burgasser et al. 2002; Marley et al. the VLT, did not detect any new companion. 2010). It is also possible that the clouds can become thinner and thinner and eventually disappear because of the increas- In this work we present new long-term, high-resolution, pho- ing size of their particles and subsequent rain-out (Tsuji & tometric monitoring of the Luhman 16 system over two years, − Nakajima 2003; Knapp et al. 2004). Photometric time-variability performed through an optical broad-band filter (700 950 nm) monitoring of brown dwarfs is therefore a useful diagnostic tool with a lucky-imaging camera. The new data have been used to for investigating the properties of clouds in their atmospheres, study the variability in red-optical light (Sect. 2) and revise the and periodic or quasi-periodic rapid variability has been found astrometric motion of the two brown dwarfs (Sect. 3). Section 4 in several cases both at optical and near-infrared (NIR) wave- summarises our results. lengths (e.g. Artigau et al. 2009; Radigan et al. 2012, 2014; Buenzli et al. 2012, 2014; Heinze et al. 2013; Biller et al. 2013). In this context, the binary system Luhman 16AB (aka 2. Photometry WISE J104915.57−531906.1; Luhman 2013), being composed 2.1. Observations and data reduction of L7.5 (A component) and T0.5 (B component) brown dwarfs (Kniazev et al. 2013; Burgasser et al.