New Low-Mass Stars and Brown Dwarfs with Disks in Lupus

Using the Infrared Array Camera and the Multiband Imaging Photometer aboard the Spitzer Space Telescope, we have obtained images of the Lupus 3 star-forming cloud at 3.6, 4.5, 5.8, 8.0, and 24 μm. We present photometry in these bands for the 41 previously known members that are in our images. In addition, we have identified 19 possible new members of the cloud based on red 3.6-8.0 μm colors that are indicative of circumstellar disks. We have performed optical spectroscopy on six of these candidates, all of which are confirmed as young low-mass members of Lupus 3. The spectral types of these new members range from M4.75 to M8, corresponding to masses of 0.2-0.03 M_☉ for ages of ~1 Myr according to theoretical evolutionary models. We also present optical spectroscopy of a candidate disk-bearing object in the vicinity of the Lupus 1 cloud, 2M 1541-3345, which Jayawardhana & Ivanov recently classified as a young brown dwarf (M ~ 0.03 M_☉) with a spectral type of M8. In contrast to their results, we measure an earlier spectral type of M5.75 ± 0.25 for this object, indicating that it is probably a low-mass star (M ~ 0.1 M_☉). In fact, according to its gravity-sensitive absorption lines and its luminosity, 2M 1541-3345 is older than members of the Lupus clouds (τ ~ 1 Myr) and instead is probably a more evolved pre-main-sequence star that is not directly related to the current generation of star formation in Lupus.