The frequency of T Tauri companion stars
- Creators
-
Ghez, A. M.
- Neugebauer, G.
- Matthews, K.
Abstract
We present the results of a magnitude limited (K≤8.5 mag) multiplicity survey of T Tauri stars in two nearby star forming regions, Tauris-Auriga and Ophiuchus-Scorpius. Each of the 69 stars in the sample was observed at K(2.2 microns) with an infrared array camera on the Hale 5-m Telescope at Palomar Observatory and imaged using two-dimensional speckle imaging techniques. Thirty three companion stars were found of which 15 were new detections. One of the main results of this survey indicates that the binary star frequncy in the projected linear separation range 14 to 225 AU for T Tauri stars (59 ± 16%) is a factor of 3.5 greater than that of the solar-type main sequence stars (17 ±3%). Given the limited angular separation range of this survey, i.e., both the spectroscopic and wide binaries are missed, the rate at which binaries are detected suggests that most, if not all, T Tauri stars have companions. We propose that the observed overabundance of companions to the T Tauri stars relative to their older counterparts on the main sequence is an evolutionary effect; in this scheme triple and higher order T Tauri star systems, which are observed at higher frequencies than for the solar-type main sequence stars, are disrupted by close encounters with another star or system of stars.
Additional Information
© 1993 Astronomical Society of the Pacific. Received 1993 March 8; accepted 1993 June 28. We thank the staff of Palomar, especially night assistants Juan Carrasco and Will McKinley, for their assistance during the observations and J. Graham, D. McCarthy, A. Sargent, M. Simon, and T. Soifer for many helpful discussions. Tom Prince and the Caltech Concurrent Supercomputing Facility generously provided time on the Caltech NCUBE supercomputer for the speckle imaging data reduction. This work was done as part of A. G.'s Ph.D. thesis work at Caltech. Infrared astrophysics at Caltech is supported by a grant from the NSF. A. G. currently receives support from NASA through Grant No. HF-1031.01-92A awarded by the Space Telescope Science Institute which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., for NASA under Contract No. NAS5-26555.Attached Files
Published - 1993PASP__105__951G.pdf
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 84691
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20180206-131344613
- NSF
- HF-1031.01-92A
- NASA
- NAS5-26555
- NASA
- Space Telescope Science Institute
- Created
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2018-02-06Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-15Created from EPrint's last_modified field