Low-mass binaries and the luminosity function

Details Low-mass binaries and the luminosity function Low-mass binaries and the luminosity function

Jul 1995

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1995hst..prop.5913r&link_type=abstract

HST Proposal ID #5913

Statistics

Hst Proposal Id #5913 Stellar Populations

Scientific paper

The stellar luminosity function derived from nearby stars {r < 10 pc.} is flat for M_v >= 12, while results based on photometric surveys of more distant stars show an order of magnitude fewer stars at M_v > 14 than at the peak {M_v +12}. The two main hypotheses postulated to account for this difference are either small-number statistics locally, or that the "missing" lower-luminosity stars are hidden as unresolved companions in the latter samples. We propose to use the unparalleled resolution of HST to discriminate between these hypotheses through a SNAPSHOT survey of stars in a complete sample of late-type M-dwarfs drawn from photometric surveys. Allowing for the distribution of semi-major axes and inclination effects, we expect to detect at least 40 % of the binaries in our sample, which has an effective distance limit of 100 parsecs. With a dynamic range of over 5 magnitudes at 8000 Angstrom, these observations will provide the first direct determination of the effect of binary stars on the derivation of the stellar luminosity function.

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