Journal
ASTRONOMICAL JOURNAL
Volume 144, Issue 2, Pages -Publisher
IOP PUBLISHING LTD
DOI: 10.1088/0004-6256/144/2/62
Keywords
astrometry; binaries: general; brown dwarfs; stars: low-mass
Categories
Funding
- NASA Long-Term Space Astrophysics program
- National Science Foundation
- National Geographic Society
- Sloan Foundation
- Samuel Oschin Foundation
- Eastman Kodak Corporation
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- [NAG5-11627]
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We report the first results of a multi-epoch search for wide (separations greater than a few tens of AU), low-mass tertiary companions of a volume-limited sample of 118 known spectroscopic binaries within 30 pc of the Sun, using the Two Micron All Sky Survey Point Source Catalog and follow-up observations with the KPNO and CTIO 4 m telescopes. Note that this sample is not volume complete but volume limited, and, thus, there is incompleteness in our reported companion rates. We are sensitive to common proper motion companions with separations from roughly 200 AU to 10,000 AU (similar to 10 '' -> similar to 10'). From 77 sources followed-up to date, we recover 11 previously known tertiaries, 3 previously known candidate tertiaries, of which 2 are spectroscopically confirmed and 1 rejected, and 3 new candidates, of which 2 are confirmed and 1 rejected. This yields an estimated wide tertiary fraction of 19.5(-3.7)(+5.2)%. This observed fraction is consistent with predictions set out in star formation simulations where the fraction of wide, low-mass companions to spectroscopic binaries is > 10%.
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