<i>Euclid</i>: Early Release Observations – A glance at free-floating newborn planets in the σ Orionis cluster
journal contribution
posted on 2025-07-30, 14:00 authored by EL Martín, M Žerjal, H Bouy, D Martin-Gonzalez, S Muñoz Torres, D Barrado, J Olivares, A Pérez-Garrido, P Mas-Buitrago, P Cruz, E Solano, MR Zapatero Osorio, N Lodieu, VJS Béjar, J-Y Zhang, C del Burgo, N Huélamo, R Laureijs, A Mora, T Saifollahi, J-C Cuillandre, M Schirmer, R Tata, S Points, N Phan-Bao, B Goldman, Sarah CasewellSarah Casewell, C Reylé, RL Smart, C Dominguez-Tagle, A Escobar, N Sedighi, S Tsilia, N Vitas, A Ayadi, N Aghanim, B Altieri, S Andreon, N Auricchio, M Baldi, A Balestra, S Bardelli, A Basset, R Bender, D Bonino, E Branchini, M Brescia, J Brinchmann, S Camera, V Capobianco, C Carbone, J Carretero, S Casas, M Castellano, S Cavuoti, A Cimatti, G Congedo, CJ Conselice, L Conversi, Y Copin, L Corcione, F Courbin, HM Courtois, M Cropper, A Da Silva, H Degaudenzi, AM Di Giorgio, J Dinis, F Dubath, X Dupac, S Dusini, A Ealet, M Farina, S Farrens, S Ferriol, P Fosalba, M Frailis, E Franceschi, M Fumana, S Galeotta, B Garilli, W Gillard, B Gillis, C Giocoli, P Gómez-Alvarez, A Grazian, F Grupp, L Guzzo, SVH Haugan, J Hoar, H Hoekstra, W Holmes, I Hook, F Hormuth, A Hornstrup, D Hu, P Hudelot, K Jahnke, M Jhabvala, E Keihänen, S Kermiche, A Kiessling, M Kilbinger, T Kitching, R Kohley, B Kubik, M Kümmel, M Kunz, H Kurki-Suonio, D Le Mignant, S Ligori, PB Lilje, V Lindholm, I Lloro, D Maino, E Maiorano, O Mansutti, O Marggraf, N Martinet, F Marulli, R Massey, E Medinaceli, S Mei, M Melchior, Y Mellier, M Meneghetti, G Meylan, JJ Mohr, M Moresco, L Moscardini, S-M Niemi, C Padilla, S Paltani, F Pasian, K Pedersen, WJ Percival, V Pettorino, S Pires, G Polenta, M Poncet, LA Popa, L Pozzetti, GD Racca, F Raison, R Rebolo, A Renzi, J Rhodes, G Riccio, Hans-Walter Rix, E Romelli, M Roncarelli, E Rossetti, R Saglia, D Sapone, B Sartoris, M Sauvage, R Scaramella, P Schneider, A Secroun, G Seidel, M Seiffert, S Serrano, C Sirignano, G Sirri, L Stanco, P Tallada-Crespí, AN Taylor, HI Teplitz, I Tereno, R Toledo-Moreo, A Tsyganov, I Tutusaus, L Valenziano, T Vassallo, G Verdoes Kleijn, Y Wang, J Weller, OR Williams, E Zucca, C Baccigalupi, G Willis, P Simon, J Martín-Fleitas, D ScottWe provide an early assessment of the imaging capabilities of the Euclid space mission to deeply probe nearby star-forming regions and associated very young open clusters, and in particular, to determine to which extent it can shed light into the newborn free- floating planet population. This paper focusses on a low-reddening region observed in just one Euclid pointing. The dust and gas has been cleared out from the region by the hot σ Orionis star. One late-M and six known spectroscopically confirmed L-type ultracool members in the σ Orionis cluster were used as benchmarks to provide a high-purity procedure to select new candidate members with Euclid. The exquisite angular resolution and depth delivered by the Euclid instruments allowed us to focus on bona fide point sources. A cleaned sample of σ Orionis cluster substellar members was produced, and the initial mass function (IMF) was estimated by combining Euclid and Gaia data. Our σ Orionis substellar IMF is consistent with a power-law distribution without a significant steepening at the planetary-mass end. No evidence of a low-mass cutoff is found down to the detection limit of this study at 4 Jupiter masses in the very young σ Orionis open cluster.<p></p>
History
Author affiliation
College of Science & Engineering Physics & AstronomyVersion
- VoR (Version of Record)
