Program: GN-2014B-Q-55

The measurement of the minimum mass of the IMF would provide a fundamental test of theories of star and planet formation. To provide better constraints on the minimum of the IMF, we are using colors and proper motions measured from deep images from the Hubble Space Telescope, the Spitzer Space telescope, and ground-based telescopes to search for low-mass brown dwarfs in the Chamaeleon I (2 Myr, 160 pc) and the IC348 (3 Myr, 315 pc) star-forming regions. In these data, we have identified promising candidates that should have masses as low as 5 Jupiter masses if they are members, which would make them some of the least massive known brown dwarfs. We propose to use FLAMINGOS-2 and GNIRS to obtain near-infrared spectra of these candidates to determine whether they are young brown dwarfs.