Low-mass Tertiary Companions to Spectroscopic Binaries. I. Common Proper Motion Survey for Wide Companions Using 2MASS
Abstract
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 (~10ˮ → ~ 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^(+5.2)_(–3.7)%. 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%.
Additional Information
© 2012 American Astronomical Society. Received 2011 March 17, accepted for publication 2012 May 29. Published 2012 July 16. P.A. was supported by grant NAG5-11627, awarded to Kevin Luhman from the NASA Long-Term Space Astrophysics program. This research has made use of the NASA/IPAC Infrared Science Archive, which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The work here alsomade use of the Second Palomar Observatory Sky Survey (POSS-II). POSS-II was made by the California Institute of Technology with funds from the National Science Foundation, the National Geographic Society, the Sloan Foundation, the Samuel Oschin Foundation, and the Eastman Kodak Corporation. This publication makes use of data products from the Two Micron All Sky Survey, which is a joint project of the University of Massachusetts and the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center/California Institute of Technology, funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Science Foundation. This research has made use of the SIMBAD database, operated at CDS, Strasbourg, France. P.A. also thanks the many individuals who obtained the additional SpeX NIR prism spectra presented here: Kelle Cruz, Dagny Looper, and Kevin Luhman. P.A. acknowledges several productive conversations that aided the work presented here, including Sebastien L´epine, Adam Kraus, and Kevin Luhman. The authors finally thank the observatory staffs at KPNO and CTIO for their help in obtaining the data used in this paper, particularly Dick Joyce and Nicole van der Bliek.Attached Files
Published - Allen2012p19280Astron_J.pdf
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 33513
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20120824-114713432
- NAG5-11627
- NASA
- NASA/JPL/Caltech
- NSF
- National Geographic Society
- Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
- Samuel Oschin Foundation
- Eastman Kodak Corporation
- Created
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2012-08-24Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-09Created from EPrint's last_modified field
- Caltech groups
- Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC)