This will support work using the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) and soon-to-be commissioned TripleSpec4 spectrograph on the Blanco 4-m telescope at Cerro Tololo in Chile to obtain images, astrometry and spectra of relatively young substellar objects in the nearest OB star-forming region, Sco-Cen. The observations will be used to constrain atmospheric models of L- and other brown dwarfs, and to determine what fraction of substellar objects have protoplanetary accretion disks within 15 million years of the substellar objects? formation. The project?s main goals are to greatly improve our knowledge of the properties of young brown dwarfs, help constrain their origins, and observationally constrain the prospects for planet formation around brown dwarfs via their disk lifetimes.
Broader impacts include bringing research into undergraduate STEM-related classes, press-releases, and training undergraduate students in research.
