Planet Detection Around Brown Dwarfs

Exoplanets orbiting substellar objects have attracted increasing attention as they provide a unique insight into the formation of these systems, such as the multi-planet system TRAPPIST-1. Brown dwarfs are of particular interest of these studies due to their unique nature, straddling the line between star and planet. We are proposing a formalization of detecting terrestrial exoplanets orbiting brown dwarfs through the measurement of radio signals produced by a plasma torus. To do this, we are expanding upon a formula method used to determine the incident flux produced by the interactions between a Jupiter-type planet and moon, and applying this to a brown dwarf and Earth-type planet system. We performed calculations for brown dwarfs of known mass and radius over a range of possible semi-major axis for the satellite, 0.001AU to 0.1 AU, and consider systems in which the brown dwarf is not orbiting a larger primary star. We found that these systems were capable of producing a measurable flux of 1×10⁴⁸ for the closest orbits and 1×10³⁹ for satellites farther from the brown dwarf. We believe this method to be a viable form of exoplanet detection for brown dwarf-terrestrial satellite systems.