Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Jan 2011
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011aas...21724226w&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #217, #242.26; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 43, 2011
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
Stellar multiplicity provides fundamental clues about the nature of star formation, the distribution of baryonic mass in the Universe, and the evolution of stellar systems over time. How stars are parceled into singles, doubles, and higher order multiples also provides clues about the angular momentum distribution in stellar systems and constraints on whether planets may be found. Because of their large numbers, arguably the best sample that can be studied to understand stellar multiplicity are the nearby M-dwarfs.
Companion searches have been done for M-dwarfs during the past few decades, but all of the surveys have had on the order of 100 targets. With samples of this size, our statistical understanding of the distribution of companions is quite weak. We are currently systematically surveying 1200 red dwarfs that have trigonometric parallaxes placing them within 25 pc of the Sun for stellar companions at separations of 1" to 10'. By obtaining I-band images using the CTIO 0.9m in the south and the Lowell 42in in the north, we are probing the environs of these systems for companions at separations of 1" to 3'. Because the systems all have accurate parallaxes, biases inherent to photometrically-selected samples are eliminated. A complementary reconnaissance of wider companions out to 10' is also being done via blinking of SuperCOSMOS BRI images.
The results will allow statistical analyses of the nearby M-dwarf population, refinement of the solar neighborhood membership roster, and improvement of the mass function for these objects at the end of the main sequence. This is the largest, most comprehensive study ever done of the multiplicity of the most common stars in the Galaxy, one that will hopefully reveal those hidden friends lurking in the darkness.
This work is supported by NSF grant AST 09-08402, the SMARTS Consortium, and Georgia State University.
Boyd Mark R.
Hambly Nigel C.
Henry Todd J.
RECONS
Winters Jennifer G.
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