Lithium test implications for brown dwarfs

From a combined sample of 303 field L dwarfs, we find observationally that 7.6+/-1.6% are younger than 100Myr. This percentage is in agreement with theoretical predictions once observing biases are taken into account.

We find that these young L dwarfs tend to fall in the southern hemisphere (DEC<0{deg}) and may be previously unrecognized, low-mass members of nearby, young associations like Tucana-Horologium, TW Hydrae, {beta} Pictoris, and AB Doradus. We use a homogeneously observed sample of ~150 optical spectra to examine lithium strength as a function of L/T spectral type and further corroborate the trends noted by Kirkpatrick and coworkers.