Sub-stellar birth rate from UKIDSS

This effective temperature range is especially sensitive to the formation history of Galactic brown dwarfs and allows us to constrain the form of the sub-stellar birth rate, with sensitivity to differentiate between a flat (stellar like) birth rate and an exponentially declining form.

We present the discovery of 63 new L and T dwarfs from the UKIDSS LAS DR7, including the identification of 12 likely unresolved binaries, which form the first complete sub-set from our programme, covering 495 square degrees of sky, complete to J=18.1. We compare our results for this sub-sample with simulations of differing birth rates for objects of masses 0.10-0.03M_{sun}_ and ages 1-10Gyr. We find that the more extreme birth rates (e.g. a halo type form) can likely be excluded as the true form of the birth rate.