Brown dwarfs are objects that bridge the realms of stars and planets. With masses below ~0.08 MSun, they cannot sustain hydrogen fusion, never reach the main sequence, and remain cooling forever. Star forming regions and young clusters harbour large populations of these substellar objects, including some with masses comparable to those of giant extrasolar planets. Understanding how brown dwarfs form is one of the crucial missing pieces in our understanding of how star and planet formation work. In this talk I will present the main results of our deep survey SONYC (Substellar Objects in Nearby Young Clusters), designed to provide a census of the substellar population in nearby star forming regions, and characterize their Initial Mass Functions down to unprecedented masses below 10 MJup. Furthermore, I will present our new program to study brown dwarf populations in a sample of massive young clusters, characterized by high stellar densities and presence of many massive OB stars. Characterizing substellar populations in star forming environments that are drastically different from those where brown dwarfs have been studied so far, allows us for the first time to look for variations in the efficiency of brown dwarf formation in the Milky Way as a function of environment.
Brown dwarfs in young star clusters
Next Seminar
Testing General Relativity with Extreme Mass Ratio Inspirals
Next Journal Club
Discussion of the paper "Energy momentum tensor, stability, and the D-term of Q-balls", by Manuel Mai and Peter Schweitzer
Black Hole Workshops
Next workshop:
XVII Black Holes Workshop, Aveiro,
19-20 December 2024
Previous workshops in the series:
I Black Holes Workshop, Porto, 2008
II Black Holes Workshop, Lisbon, 2009
III Black Holes Workshop, Minho, 2010
IV Black Holes Workshop, Aveiro, 2011
V Black Holes Workshop, Lisbon, 2012
VI Black Holes Workshop, Minho 2013
VII Black Holes Workshop, Aveiro 2014
VIII Black Holes Workshop, Lisbon 2015
IX Black Holes Workshop, Minho 2016
X Black Holes Workshop, Aveiro 2017
XI Black Holes Workshop, Lisbon, 2018
XII Black Holes Workshop, Minho, 2019
XIII Black Holes Workshop, Lisbon, 2020
XIV Black Holes Workshop, Aveiro, 2021
XV Black Holes Workshop, Lisbon, 2022
XVI Black Holes Workshop, Porto, 2023
Numerical data
NewFunFICO network
Our group coordinates the Marie Sklodowska Curie Staff Exchange NewFunFiCO network (Jan 2023- Dec 2026)
More info here
FunFiCO Network
Our group coordinates the Marie Curie RISE FunFiCO network (Dec 2017- Dec 2023)
More info here
EuCAPT Consortium
GWVerse COST
StronGrHEP Network
Our group was part of the RISE StronGrHEP network (2016-2019)
Meetings:
Paris, 12-13 May 2016
Azores, 3-8 July 2017
Osaka, 4-8 September 2017
NRHEP Network Meetings
Our group coordinated the "Numerical Relativity and High Energy Physics" IRSES network (2012-2015). Here is a list of the global network meetings organized:
First Meeting:
9-13 July 2012, Aveiro, Portugal
Second Meeting:
11-14 March 2013, Lisbon, Portugal
Third Meeting:
6-10 January 2014, Mississippi, USA
Fourth Meeting:
7-10 July 2015, Rome, Italy
Fifth Meeting:
28 Sep-2 Oct 2015, Belém, Brazil
Ph.D. and Post-doctoral opportunities
Contact us If you are interested in pursuing graduate studies/research in our group.
Information for prospective Ph.D. students can be found here.
Past Ph.D. theses from our group can be found here.
Working as a researcher in Portugal - a quick guide.