The VAST Survey - III. The multiplicity of A-type stars within 75 pc

Abstract

With a combination of adaptive optics imaging and a multi-epoch common proper motion search, we have conducted a large volume-limited (D $\le$ 75 pc) multiplicity survey of A-type stars, sensitive to companions beyond 30 au. The sample for the Volume-limited A-STar (VAST) survey consists of 435 A-type stars: 363 stars were observed with adaptive optics, 228 stars were searched for wide common proper motion companions and 156 stars were measured with both techniques. The projected separation coverage of the VAST survey extends from 30 to 45,000 au. A total of 137 stellar companions were resolved, including 64 new detections from the VAST survey, and the companion star fraction, projected separation distribution and mass ratio distribution were measured. The separation distribution forms a log-normal distribution similar to the solar-type binary distribution, but with a peak shifted to a significantly wider value of 387 (+132,-98) au. Integrating the fit to the distribution over the 30 to 10,000 au observed range, the companion star fraction for A-type stars is estimated as 33.8%+-2.6%. The mass ratio distribution of closer (<125 au) binaries is distinct from that of wider systems, with a flat distribution for close systems and a distribution that tends towards smaller mass ratios for wider binaries. Combining this result with previous spectroscopic surveys of A-type stars gives an estimate of the total companion star fraction of 68.9%+-7.0%. The most complete assessment of higher order multiples was estimated from the 156-star subset of the VAST sample with both adaptive optics and common proper motion measurements, combined with a literature search for companions, yielding a lower limit on the frequency of single, binary, triple, quadruple and quintuple A-type star systems of 56.4 (-4.0,+3.8), 32.1 (-3.5,+3.9), 9.0 (-1.8,+2.8), 1.9 (-0.6,+1.8) and 0.6 (-0.2,+1.4) per cent, respectively.

46 pages, 24 figures. Accepted for publication in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 7th October 2013

References in corpus (69)

• Validation of the new Hipparcos reduction
• A Survey of Stellar Families: Multiplicity of Solar-Type Stars
• Direct Imaging of Multiple Planets Orbiting the Star HR 8799
• Improved Age Estimation for Solar-Type Dwarfs Using Activity-Rotation Diagnostics
• Angular Differential Imaging: a Powerful High-Contrast Imaging Technique
• Images of a fourth planet orbiting HR 8799
• Modelling Accretion in Protobinary Systems
• Optical Images of an Exosolar Planet 25 Light Years from Earth
• The PPMXL catalog of positions and proper motions on the ICRS. Combining USNO-B1.0 and 2MASS
• On the rotational evolution of solar- and late-type stars, its magnetic origins, and the possibility of stellar gyrochronology
• SB9: The Ninth Catalogue of Spectroscopic Binary Orbits
• The SuperCOSMOS Sky Survey. Paper I: Introduction and Description
• A probable giant planet imaged in the Beta Pictoris disk
• The High Angular Resolution Multiplicity of Massive Stars
• Stellar, brown dwarf and multiple star properties from a radiation hydrodynamical simulation of star cluster formation
• The VLT-FLAMES Tarantula Survey VIII. Multiplicity properties of the O-type star population
• Stellar, Brown Dwarf, and Multiple Star Properties from Hydrodynamical Simulations of Star Cluster Formation
• Debris Disk Evolution Around A Stars
• On the Role of Disks in the Formation of Stellar Systems: A Numerical Parameter Study of Rapid Accretion
• The Gemini Deep Planet Survey -- GDPS
• Stellar Multiplicity and the IMF: Most Stars Are Single
• The Runts of the Litter: Why planets formed through gravitational instability can only be failed binary stars
• Mapping the Shores of the Brown Dwarf Desert II: Multiple Star Formation in Taurus-Auriga
• Very Wide Binaries and Other Comoving Stellar Companions: A Bayesian Analysis of the Hipparcos Catalogue
• The Tucana/Horologium, Columba, AB Doradus, and Argus Associations: New Members and Dusty Debris Disks
• Characterization of Dusty Debris Disks: the IRAS and Hipparcos Catalogs
• Predicting the Properties of Binary Stellar Systems: The Evolution of Accreting Protobinary Systems
• Wide companions to Hipparcos stars within 67 pc of the Sun
• Speckle interferometry and orbits of "fast" visual binaries
• The VAST Survey - I. Companions and the unexpected X-ray detection of B6-A7 stars
• The VAST Survey -- II. Orbital motion monitoring of A-type star multiples
• The AstraLux Large M-dwarf Multiplicity Survey
• Hubble Space Telescope NICMOS Observations of T Dwarfs: Brown Dwarf Multiplicity and New Probes of the L/T Transition
• Discovery of a probable 4-5 Jupiter-mass exoplanet to HD 95086 by direct-imaging
• New Debris Disks Around Young, Low Mass Stars Discovered With The Spitzer Space Telescope
• Direct Imaging Discovery of a `Super-Jupiter' Around the late B-Type Star Kappa And
• Radiation-Hydrodynamic Simulations of the Formation of Orion-Like Star Clusters II. The Initial Mass Function from Winds, Turbulence, and Radiation
• Comparative statistics and origin of triple and quadruple stars
• The Primordial Binary Population - I: A near-infrared adaptive optics search for close visual companions to A star members of Scorpius OB2
• The International Deep Planet Survey I. The frequency of wide-orbit massive planets around A-stars
• Search for associations containing young stars. III- Ages and Li abundances
• The minimum mass for star formation, and the origin of binary brown dwarfs
• New Distant Companions to Known Nearby Stars. II. Faint companions of Hipparcos stars and the frequency of wide binary systems
• Planet formation is unlikely in equal mass binary systems with a ~ 50 AU
• A High Angular Resolution Multiplicity Survey of the Open Clusters alpha Persei and Praesepe
• The Gemini NICI Planet-Finding Campaign: The Frequency of Giant Planets around Young B and A Stars
• A novel L-band imaging search for giant planets in the Tucana and Beta Pictoris moving groups
• On the evolution of a star cluster and its multiple stellar systems following gas dispersal
• Binary Stars in the Orion Nebula Cluster
• Simulating star formation in molecular cores II. The effects of different levels of turbulence
• High-contrast Imaging Search for Planets and Brown Dwarfs around the Most Massive Stars in the Solar Neighborhood
• Lucky Imaging survey for southern M dwarf binaries
• A Multiplicity Census of Young Stars in Chamaeleon I
• Multiplicity among chemically peculiar stars II. Cool magnetic Ap stars
• Ages of A-type Vega-like stars from uvby$\beta$ Photometry
• Planet Formation in Binary Stars: The case of Gamma Cephei
• Testing the universality of star formation - I. Multiplicity in nearby star-forming regions
• No detection of large-scale magnetic fields at the surfaces of Am and HgMn stars
• Radial Velocity Studies of Close Binary Stars.X
• The lower limits of disc fragmentation and the prospects for observing fragmenting discs
• Masses, Luminosities, and Orbital Coplanarities of the mu Orionis Quadruple Star System from PHASES Differential Astrometry
• Binary star formation from ring fragmentation
• A New Brown Dwarf Desert? A Scarcity of Wide Ultracool Binaries
• A Search for Wide Companions to the Extrasolar Planetary System HR 8799
• Resolving and probing the circumstellar disk of the Herbig Ae star MWC 480 at 1.4 mm: Evolved dust?
• Orbits and Masses in the multiple system LHS 1070
• The orbits of the quadruple star system 88 Tau A from PHASES differential astrometry and radial velocity
• The circumstellar disc around the Herbig AeBe star HD169142
• A Renaissance study of Am stars. I. The mass ratio distribution

Cited by in corpus (119)

• Mind your Ps and Qs: the Interrelation between Period (P) and Mass-ratio (Q) Distributions of Binary Stars
• New white dwarf and subdwarf stars in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 12
• The SPHERE infrared survey for exoplanets (SHINE). III. The demographics of young giant exoplanets below 300 au with SPHERE
• Prospects for detection of detached double white dwarf binaries with Gaia, LSST and LISA
• Extracting Radial Velocities of A- and B-type Stars from Echelle Spectrograph Calibration Spectra
• The binarity of the local white dwarf population
• The Updated Multiple Star Catalog
• The Ages of Early-Type Stars: Strömgren Photometric Methods Calibrated, Validated, Tested, and Applied to Hosts and Prospective Hosts of Directly Imaged Exoplanets
• Impact of Binary Stars on Planet Statistics -- I. Planet Occurrence Rates, Trends with Stellar Mass, and Wide Companions to Hot Jupiter Hosts
• The M-dwarfs in Multiples (MinMs) survey - I. Stellar multiplicity among low-mass stars within 15 pc
• Discovery of an equal-mass "twin" binary population reaching 1000+ AU separations
• The International Deep Planet Survey II: The frequency of directly imaged giant exoplanets with stellar mass
• The statistical properties of stars and their dependence on metallicity
• The statistical properties of stars and their dependence on metallicity: the effects of opacity
• Finding binaries from phase modulation of pulsating stars with Kepler: V. Orbital parameters, with eccentricity and mass-ratio distributions of 341 new binaries
• Gaia EDR3 Reveals the Substructure and Complicated Star Formation History of the Greater Taurus-Auriga Star Forming Complex
• Looks can be deceiving: underestimating the age of single white dwarfs due to binary mergers
• Kepler-432: a red giant interacting with one of its two long period giant planets
• Planetary engulfment as a trigger for white dwarf pollution
• Precession and accretion in circumbinary discs: The case of HD 104237
• Formation and evolution of hybrid He-CO white dwarfs and their properties
• Populations of double white dwarfs in Milky Way satellites and their detectability with LISA
• The Ages of A-Stars I: Interferometric Observations and Age Estimates for Stars in the Ursa Major Moving Group
• Runaway and walkaway stars from the ONC with Gaia DR2
• Alone but not lonely: Observational evidence that binary interaction is always required to form hot subdwarf stars
• Characterizing the Brown Dwarf Formation Channels from the Initial Mass Function and Binary-star Dynamics
• Magnetic OB[A] Stars with TESS: probing their Evolutionary and Rotational properties (MOBSTER) - I. First-light observations of known magnetic B and A stars
• SPOTS: The Search for Planets Orbiting Two Stars: II. First constraints on the frequency of sub-stellar companions on wide circumbinary orbits
• No cataclysmic variables missing: higher merger rate brings into agreement observed and predicted space densities
• Binaries in the field: fossils of the star formation process?
• Where are the double-degenerate progenitors of type Ia supernovae?
• Dynamics of Quadruple Systems Composed of Two Binaries: Stars, White Dwarfs, and Implications for Ia Supernovae
• A wide-orbit giant planet in the high-mass b Centauri binary system
• Is stellar multiplicity universal? Tight stellar binaries in the Orion Nebula Cluster
• Binarity and beyond in A stars I. Survey description and first results of VLTI/GRAVITY observations of VAST targets with high Gaia-Hipparcos accelerations
• Kozai Migration Naturally Explains the White Dwarf Planet WD1856b
• The Close Companion Mass-Ratio Distribution of Intermediate-Mass Stars
• Extrasolar planets and brown dwarfs around AF-type stars. IX. The HARPS southern sample
• The Merger Fraction of Ultramassive White Dwarfs
• Orbital Monitoring of the AstraLux Large M-dwarf Multiplicity Sample
• Extrasolar planets and brown dwarfs around AF-type stars. X.The SOPHIE northern sample. Combining the SOPHIE and HARPS surveys to compute the close giant planet mass-period distribution around AF-type stars
• Binary Properties from Cepheid Radial Velocities (CRaV)
• KELT-21b: A Hot Jupiter Transiting the Rapidly-Rotating Metal-Poor Late-A Primary of a Likely Hierarchical Triple System
• High Mass-ratio Binary Population in Open Clusters: Segregation of early type binaries and an increasing binary fraction with mass
• Protostellar Feedback in Turbulent Fragmentation: Consequences for Stellar Clustering and Multiplicity
• Implementing Primordial Binaries in Simulations of Star Cluster Formation with a Hybrid MHD and Direct N-Body Method
• On the stability and collisions in triple stellar systems
• Undetected Binary Stars Cause an Observed Mass Dependent Age Gradient in Upper Scorpius
• Exocomet signatures around the A-shell star $\Phi$ Leo?
• White dwarfs as Physics laboratories: lights and shadows
• JWST/NIRCam discovery of the first Y+Y brown dwarf binary: WISE J033605.05$-$014350.4
• SPOTS: The Search for Planets Orbiting Two Stars. III. Complete Sample and Statistical Analysis
• A pilot survey of the binarity of Massive Young Stellar Objects with $K$ band adaptive optics
• The VAST Survey - IV. A wide brown dwarf companion to the A3V star $\zeta$ Delphini
• A new take on the low-mass brown dwarf companions on wide-orbits in Upper-Scorpius
• M Dwarf Exoplanet Surface Density Distribution: A Log-Normal Fit from 0.07-400 AU
• Searching for faint companions with VLTI/PIONIER. II. 92 main sequence stars from the Exozodi survey
• A scaled-up planetary system around a supernova progenitor
• Discovery of a brown dwarf companion to the A3V star β Circini
• A near-infrared interferometric survey of debris-disk stars. VII. The hot/warm dust connection
• SCExAO/MEC and CHARIS Discovery of a Low Mass, 6 AU-Separation Companion to HIP 109427 using Stochastic Speckle Discrimination and High-Contrast Spectroscopy
• EPIC 219217635: A Doubly Eclipsing Quadruple System Containing an Evolved Binary
• On The Orbital Separation Distribution and Binary Fraction of M Dwarfs
• Constraining the initial conditions of NGC 2264 using ejected stars found in Gaia DR2
• A Search for Intermediate Separation Low Mass Binaries in the Orion Nebula Cluster
• Dancing with the Stars: Formation of the Fomalhaut triple system and its effect on the debris disks
• Normal type Ia supernovae from disruptions of hybrid He-CO white-dwarfs by CO white-dwarfs
• Searching for gas giant planets on Solar System scales - A NACO/APP L'-band survey of A- and F-type Main Sequence stars
• New binaries from the SHINE survey
• Constraints on star formation in NGC2264
• Evidence for Halo Kinematics among Cool Carbon-Rich Dwarfs
• The ALMA survey to Resolve exoKuiper belt Substructures (ARKS) I: Motivation, sample, data reduction, and results overview
• The quadruple-lined, doubly-eclipsing system V482 Persei
• Evolution of binary seeds in collapsing protostellar gas clouds
• Herbig AeBe stars: Multiplicity and consequences
• A Survey for High-Mass Eclipsing Binaries
• Limits on a population of collisional-triples as progenitors of Type-Ia supernovae
• The Way To a Double Degenerate: $\sim 15-20$ per cent of $1M_{\odot }\le M\le 8M_{\odot }$ Stars have a $M>1M_{\odot }$ Companion
• Extreme close approaches in hierarchical triple systems with comparable masses
• Long-term stability of planets in and around binary stars
• Mass Transfer by Stellar Wind
• Far-infrared and sub-millimetre imaging of HD~76582's circumstellar disk
• Multiples among B stars in the Scorpius-Centaurus association
• An Extreme-mass Ratio, Short-period Eclipsing Binary Consisting of a B Dwarf Primary and a Pre-main Sequence M Star Companion Discovered by KELT
• A spectroscopic search for White Dwarf companions to 101 nearby M dwarfs
• The Faintest WISE Debris Disks: Enhanced Methods for Detection and Verification
• M-dwarf binaries as tracers of star and brown dwarf formation
• Precision Orbit of $\delta$ Delphini and Prospects for Astrometric Detection of Exoplanets
• An empirical isochrone archive for nearby open clusters
• VIBES: VIsual Binary Exoplanet survey with SPHERE Upper limits on wide S-planet and S-BD frequencies, triple system discovery, and astrometric confirmation of 20 stellar binaries and three triple systems
• Energy Optimization in Binary Star Systems: Explanation for Equal Mass Members in Close Orbits
• TIC 219006972: A Compact, Coplanar Quadruple Star System Consisting of Two Eclipsing Binaries with an Outer Period of 168 days
• Direct Spectral Detection: An Efficient Method to Detect and Characterize Binary Systems
• CWISE J014611.20-050850.0AB: The Widest Known Brown Dwarf Binary in the Field
• A low-mass companion desert among intermediate-mass visual binaries: The scaled-up counterpart to the brown dwarf desert
• Characterization of debris disks observed with SPHERE
• SCExAO/CHARIS Direct Imaging of A Low-Mass Companion At A Saturn-Like Separation from an Accelerating Young A7 Star
• An unusually large gaseous transit in a debris disc
• A study of the rapid rotator $\zeta$ Aql: differential surface rotation?
• A search for eclipsing binaries that host discs
• Detection of a low-mass stellar companion to the accelerating A2IV star HR 1645
• Discovery of an M-type Companion to the Herbig Ae Star V1787 Ori
• NICMOS Kernel-Phase Interferometry II: Demographics of Nearby Brown Dwarfs
• Enlarging habitable zones around binary stars in hostile environments
• Pairing function of visual binary stars
• The Small Separation A-Star Companion Population: First Results with CHARA/MIRC-X
• The A-shell star Phi Leo revisited: its photospheric and circumstellar spectra
• Spatial differences between stars and brown dwarfs: a dynamical origin?
• Yields from massive stars in binaries. Chemical evolution of the Milky Way disk
• Beyond binarity in A stars II. Disentangling the four stars in the vicinity of the triple HIP 87813 within the quintuple system HJ2814
• Exoplanet detection and its dependence on stochastic sampling of the stellar Initial Mass Function
• The effects of unresolved double-degenerates in the white dwarf luminosity function
• OASIS Survey Direct Imaging and Astrometric Discovery of HIP 71618 B: A Substellar Companion Suitable for the Roman Coronagraph Technology Demonstration
• TIC 454140642: A Compact, Coplanar, Quadruple-lined Quadruple Star System Consisting of Two Eclipsing Binaries
• Detection and characterisation of two VLM binaries: LP 1033-31 and LP 877-72
• CoronaGraph Instrument Reference stars for Exoplanets (CorGI-REx) I. Preliminary Vetting and Implications for the Roman Coronagraph and Habitable Worlds Observatory
• Drifters on the edge of town: $\lambda$ Boötis stars in clusters
• Coronal and chromospheric emission in A-type stars
• Planet formation in intermediate-separation binary systems