2016/10/14 by J. L. Halbwachs, Jean-Louis Halbwachs, M. Mayor +3 · 8 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Astrophysics #Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies #Distribution (mathematics) #Mathematical analysis #Physics #Proper motion #Stars #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #astro-ph.SR
paper · pdf · doi:10.1093/mnras/stw2683
published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 464(4), 4966-4976 (Oxford University Press) · 12 pages, 5 figures; accepted by MNRAS
arxiv created 2016/10/14 · openalex publication_date 2016/10/17 · arxiv updated 2016/12/07 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
A large observation programme was carried out to measure the radial velocities of the components of a selection of common proper motion (CPM) stars to select the physical binaries. 80 wide binaries (WBs) were detected, and 39 optical pairs were identified. By adding CPM stars with separations close enough to be almost certain that they are physical, a bias-controlled sample of 116 WBs was obtained, and used to derive the distribution of separations from 100 to 30 000 au. The distribution obtained does not match the log-constant distribution, but agrees with the log-normal distribution. The spectroscopic binaries detected among the WB components were used to derive statistical information about the multiple systems. The close binaries in WBs seem to be like those detected in other field stars. As for the WBs, they seem to obey the log-normal distribution of periods. The number of quadruple systems agrees with the no correlation hypothesis; this indicates that an environment conducive to the formation of WBs does not favour the formation of subsystems with periods shorter than 10 yr.