What question did this study set out to answer?

This research aims to reevaluate the existence of the brown dwarf desert and the occurrence rates of brown dwarf companions around Sun-like stars.

January 14, 2026Open Access

Perhaps there is no brown dwarf desert? A study of sub-stellar companions with Gaia DR3

Key Points

This research aims to reevaluate the existence of the brown dwarf desert and the occurrence rates of brown dwarf companions around Sun-like stars.
Analyzed Gaia DR3 data of nearby Sun-like stars within 200 parsecs
Utilized Bayesian inference to assess potential brown dwarf companions
Identified systems with possible brown dwarf companions based on astrometric errors
Found 2673 systems with possible brown dwarf companions, indicating a 2.41% occurrence rate
Observed a significant increase in occurrence rates compared to previous studies reporting <1%
Identified a rarity of high-mass brown dwarfs (>50M J) in the studied period range

Abstract

Abstract The brown dwarf desert describes a range of orbital periods (10M J ), high-mass brown dwarfs (>50M J ) in this period range are comparatively rare. Finally, we used our studies of the brown dwarf distribution to predict the number of companions in the brown dwarf desert we can expect to discover in DR4.

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