Atmospheric Retrieval of L Class Subdwarf J1416A
Ember Vosmek-Park, Efrain Alvarado III
Department of Physics & Astronomy
Faculty Supervisor: Eileen Gonzales
The objective for this project is performing L dwarf sample retrievals to contribute to the Arcana of the Ancients spectral metallicity survey of lowest mass stars and brown dwarfs. The subject for atmospheric retrievals in this study is the L class subdwarf J1416+1348A, using data from the JWST NIRSpec instrument G395H. Metallicity is an important parameter that influences the formation and evolution of brown dwarfs. L subdwarfs have low metallicity and produce blue near-infrared spectra that are distinct from their solar metallicity counterparts. The lowest temperature L and T subdwarfs are recent discoveries, and our understanding of the physical properties of ultracool dwarfs and planet-like atmospheres with non-solar abundances are limited by lack of empirical data and validated atmospheric models. The high infrared sensitivity of JWST data used in this survey will help advance our understanding of these low temperature atmospheres. Spectral analysis will be performed by using the Brewster spectral inversion code for analysis of emission spectra of brown dwarfs and giant planets. Brewster is a framework that uses Bayesian parameter estimation and model selection to help us analyze the conditions of cloudy atmospheres, by fitting simple model spectra with near infrared emission spectra.