A photometric monitoring campaign of brown dwarfs in the ChaI star forming
region in the i and R band revealed significant periodic variations of the
three M6.5-M7 type brown dwarf candidates ChaHa2, 3 and 6 (Joergens et al.
2002). These are the first rotational periods for very young (1-5 Myr) brown
dwarfs and among the first rotational periods for brown dwarfs at all. The
relatively long periods of 2.2 to 3.4 days as well as vsini values (Joergens &
Guenther 2001) indicate that our targets are moderately fast rotators in
contrast to very rapidly rotating old brown dwarfs. The periods for the ChaI
brown dwarf candidates provide valuable data points in an as yet, in terms of
rotational characteristic, almost unexplored region of the age-mass diagram. A
comparison with rotational properties of older brown dwarfs indicates that most
of the acceleration during the contraction phase takes place within the first
30 Myr or less of the lifetime of a brown dwarf. We have also determined
periods for the two M5-M5.5 type very low-mass stars B34 and CHXR78C.Comment: Proceeding of poster presentation at the '1st Potsdam Thinkshop on
Starspots', May 2002, Potsdam, German