English

The Binary INformation from Open Clusters Using SEDs (BINOCS) Project: Reliable Photometric Mass Determinations of Binary Star Systems in Clusters

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics 2021-03-10 v1 Astrophysics of Galaxies

Abstract

We introduce a new binary detection technique, Binary INformation from Open Clusters using SEDs (binocs), which we show is able to determine reliable stellar multiplicity and masses over a much larger mass range than current approaches. This new technique determines accurate component masses of binary and single systems of the open clusters main sequence by comparing observed magnitudes from multiple photometric filters to synthetic star spectral energy distributions (SEDs) allowing systematically probing the binary population for low mass stars in clusters for 8 well-studied open clusters. We provide new deep, infrared photometric catalogs (1.2 - 8.0 microns) for the key open clusters NGC 1960 (M36), NGC 2099 (M37), NGC 2420, and NGC2682 (M67), using observation from NOAO/NEWFIRM and Spitzer}/IRAC. Using these deep multi-wavelength catalogs, the binocs method is applied to these clusters to determine accurate component masses for unresolved cluster binaries. We explore binary fractions as a function of cluster age, Galactic location and metallicity.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2101.07857,
  title  = {The Binary INformation from Open Clusters Using SEDs (BINOCS) Project: Reliable Photometric Mass Determinations of Binary Star Systems in Clusters},
  author = {Benjamin Thompson and Peter M. Frinchaboy and Taylor Spoo and John Donor},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2101.07857},
  year   = {2021}
}

Comments

22 pages, 21 figures, AJ accepted

R2 v1 2026-06-23T22:19:54.712Z