GTC/OSIRIS SPECTROSCOPIC IDENTIFICATION OF A FAINT L SUBDWARF IN THE UKIRT INFRARED DEEP SKY SURVEY

We present the discovery of an L subdwarf in 234 deg2 common to the UK InfraRed Telescope (UKIRT) Infrared Deep Sky Survey Large Area Survey Data Release 2 and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 3. This is the fifth L subdwarf announced to date, the first one identified in the UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey, and the faintest known. The blue optical and near-infrared colors of ULAS J135058.86+081506.8 and its overall spectra energy distribution are similar to the known mid-L subdwarfs. Low-resolution optical (700–1000 nm) spectroscopy with the Optical System for Imaging and low Resolution Integrated Spectroscopy spectrograph on the 10.4 m Gran Telescopio de Canarias reveals that ULAS J135058.86+081506.8 exhibits a strong K i pressure-broadened line at 770 nm and a red slope longward of 800 nm, features characteristics of L-type dwarfs. From direct comparison with the four known L subdwarfs, we estimate its spectral type to be sdL4–sdL6 and derive a distance in the interval 94–170 pc. We provide a rough estimate of the space density for mid-L subdwarfs of 1.5 × 10−4 pc−3.

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