The Likelihood of Hosting Undetected Brown Dwarfs in the Solar Vicinity

Abstract

Based on the spatial distribution of objects in the solar neighbourhood with a radius of 20 parsecs, and after correcting for the incompleteness of observational data, an expression was obtained for estimating the probability of finding an object at a given distance from the Sun. According to these estimates, with a probability of about 0.5, there exists a brown dwarf in the immediate solar vicinity (< 1.2 pc). The possible multiplicity of this hypothetical object is discussed, as well as the reasons why it has not yet been detected.