We use three field L and T dwarfs which were discovered to be wide companions to known stars by the Two Micron All-Sky Survey ( 2MASS ) to derive a preliminary brown dwarf companion frequency .
Observed L and T dwarfs indicate that brown dwarfs are not unusually rare as wide ( \Delta > 1000 A.U . )
systems to F-M0 main-sequence stars ( M > 0.5 M _ { \odot } , M _ { V } < 9.5 ) , even though they are rare at close separation ( \Delta < 3 A.U .
) , the “ brown dwarf desert. ” Stellar companions in these separation ranges are equally frequent , but brown dwarfs are \gtrsim 10 times as frequent for wide than close separations .
A brown dwarf wide-companion frequency as low as the 0.5 % seen in the brown dwarf desert is ruled out by currently-available observations .