PhD thesis
I successfully defended my PhD thesis on 2004 July 7 at the CESR's conference room (Toulouse, France). The jury was composed of Emmanuel Caux (CESR, France), Mark McCaughrean (AIP, Germany), Peter von Ballmoos (CESR, France), Pavel Kroupa (Bonn, Germany), and Thierry Montmerle (LAOG, France). The second referee, Eduardo Martin (IAC, Spain), could not attend my PhD defense.
You can download my whole PhD thesis as a pdf file (about 7 Mb). My thesis is also available on the website of the Astrophysical Institute Potsdam, where I did my PhD under the supervision of Mark McCaughrean.
- Chapter 1 summarises the present theoretical and observational knowledge on brown dwarfs. A brief overview on the IMF is also provided.
- Chapter 2 presents the outcome of a proper motion survey conducted in the Southern Sky to uncover the coolest and closest low-mass stars and brown dwarfs. This work led to the discovery of a large number of late-M dwarfs, four L dwarfs, and to the discovery of the closest binary T dwarf, Epsilon Indi Ba,Bb.
- Chapter 3 presents a wide-field near-infrared survey of a 0.7 square degree area in the Alpha Per cluster conducted with the Omega-Prime camera on the Calar Alto 3.5-m telescope. Optical spectroscopy of photometrically-selected candidates is also presented.
- Chapter 4 deals with a wide-field optical survey of 1.6 square degree in a young open cluster, Collinder 359. The survey was complemented by near-infrared imaging. We have revised the age and the distance of the cluster, and derive the stellar and substellar luminosity and mass functions.
- List of selected cluster member candidates
- Tar file (60 Mb) containing the finding charts of photometric candidates
- Chapter 5 gives an overview of future work to be carried out in the Alpha Per and Collinder 359 clusters, including near-infrared imaging and optical spectroscopy.