Low-mass stars and brown dwarfs in NGC 2024

Using FLAMINGOS on the KPNO 2.1m and 4m telescopes, we have obtained spectra of ~70 new members of the cluster and classified them via the prominent J- and H-band water absorption features. Derived spectral types range from ~M1 to later than M8 with typical classification errors of 0.5-1 subclasses.

By combining these spectral types with JHK photometry, we place these objects on the H-R diagram and use pre-main-sequence evolutionary models to infer masses and ages. The mean age for this low-mass population of NGC 2024 is 0.5Myr, and derived masses range from ~0.7 to 0.02M_{sun}_ with 23 objects falling below the hydrogen-burning limit. The logarithmic mass function rises to a peak at ~0.2M_{sun}_ before turning over and declining into the substellar regime.