Revealing companions to nearby stars with astrometric acceleration

A Tokovinin, M Hartung, TL Hayward… - The Astronomical …, 2012 - iopscience.iop.org
A Tokovinin, M Hartung, TL Hayward, VV Makarov
The Astronomical Journal, 2012iopscience.iop.org
ABSTRACT A subset of 51 Hipparcos astrometric binaries among FG dwarfs within 67 pc
has been surveyed with the Near-Infrared Coronagraphic Imager adaptive optics system at
Gemini-S, directly resolving for the first time 17 subarcsecond companions and 7 wider
ones. Using these data together with published speckle interferometry of 57 stars, we
compare the statistics of resolved astrometric companions with those of a simulated binary
population. The fraction of resolved companions is slightly lower than expected from binary …
Abstract
A subset of 51 Hipparcos astrometric binaries among FG dwarfs within 67 pc has been surveyed with the Near-Infrared Coronagraphic Imager adaptive optics system at Gemini-S, directly resolving for the first time 17 subarcsecond companions and 7 wider ones. Using these data together with published speckle interferometry of 57 stars, we compare the statistics of resolved astrometric companions with those of a simulated binary population. The fraction of resolved companions is slightly lower than expected from binary statistics. About 10% of astrometric companions could be" dark"(white dwarfs and close pairs of late M-dwarfs). To our surprise, several binaries are found with companions too wide to explain the acceleration. Re-analysis of selected intermediate astrometric data shows that some acceleration solutions in the original Hipparcos catalog are spurious.
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