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Published 1978 | public
Journal Article

Brown and Black Dwarfs: Their structure, evolution and contribution to the missing mass

Abstract

According to Oort (1965), the mass density in the solar neighbourhood (inferred from the gravity component normal to the galactic plane) is between 50% and 150% greater than the mass density inferred from non-dwarf stars. One possible explanation for the "missing mass" is an overabundance of faint M-dwarfs (Weistrop 1972), but present indications are that this overabundance is either small (Weistrop 1976; Sanduleak 1976) or non-existent (Faber et al. 1976; Eggen 1976). Nevertheless, Salpeter's initial mass function (Salpeter 1955) suggests that the total mass may be dominated by low mass stars, including masses M ≾ 0.08M_⊙ which never undergo significant hydrogen burning.

Additional Information

© 1978 Astronomical Society of Australia. I thank Dr. F. Dyson (Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton) for interesting me in this problem.

Additional details

Created:
August 22, 2023
Modified:
October 24, 2023