JHK photometry in Cha I

The survey is complete for K<15.0, H<16.0, and J<16.5, roughly 2 magnitudes more sensitive than previous large-scale surveys. We use the large number of background stars detected to derive an accurate near-infrared extinction law for the cloud and select new candidate members with near-infrared color excesses.

We list ~100 candidates of the cloud with K>=2.0, based on their positions in the J-H, H-K color-color diagram. These new stars have low luminosities (K~12-16, H-K>~0.5-1.5) and may have masses close to or even below the hydrogen-burning limit.