Discovery of the Widest Very Low Mass Binary
Astrophysics
2016-08-14 v2
Abstract
We report the discovery of a very low mass binary system (primary mass <0.1 Msol) with a projected separation of ~5100 AU, more than twice that of the widest previously known system. A spectrum covering the 1-2.5 microns wavelength interval at R ~1700 is presented for each component. Analysis of the spectra indicates spectral types of M6.5V and M8V, and the photometric distance of the system is ~62 pc. Given that previous studies have established that no more than 1% of very low mass binary systems have orbits larger than 20 AU, the existence of such a wide system has a bearing on very low mass star formation and evolution models.
Cite
@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0702647,
title = {Discovery of the Widest Very Low Mass Binary},
author = {Étienne Artigau and David Lafrenière and René Doyon and Loïc Albert and Daniel Nadeau and Jasmin Robert},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0702647},
year = {2016}
}
Comments
accepted ApJL, 4 pages