A&A 460, L19-L22 (2006)
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361:20066120

Letter

Five new very low mass binaries

G. Montagnier^{1, 2}, D. Ségransan², J.-L. Beuzit¹, T. Forveille^{3, 1}, P. Delorme¹, X. Delfosse¹, C. Perrier¹, S. Udry², M. Mayor², G. Chauvin⁴, A.-M. Lagrange¹, D. Mouillet⁵, T. Fusco⁶, P. Gigan⁷, and E. Stadler<sup>1

1</sup>  Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Grenoble, BP 53, 38041 Grenoble Cedex, France
    e-mail: Guillaume.Montagnier@obs.ujf-grenoble.fr
²  Observatoire de Genève, 51 chemin des Maillettes, 1290 Sauverny, Switzerland
³  Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Corporation, 65-1238 Mamalahoa Highway, Kamuela, HI 96743, Hawaii, USA
⁴  European Southern Observatory, Casilla 19001, Santiago 19, Chile
⁵  Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Toulouse et Tarbes, BP 826, 65008 Tarbes Cedex, France
⁶  ONERA-DOTA, BP 72, 29 avenue de la Division Leclerc, 92322 Châtillon Cedex, France
⁷  Laboratoire d'Études Spatiales et d'Instrumentation Astrophysique, 92195 Meudon Cedex, France

(Received 26 July 2006 / Accepted 12 October 2006)

Abstract
We report the discovery of companions to 5 nearby late M dwarfs (>M5), LHS1901, LHS4009, LHS6167, LP869-26 and WT460, and we confirm that the recently discovered mid-T brown dwarf companion to SCR1845-6357 is physically bound to that star. These discoveries result from our adaptive optics survey of all M dwarfs within 12 pc. The new companions have spectral types M5 to L1, and orbital separations between 1 and 10 AU. They add significantly to the number of late M dwarfs binaries in the immediate solar neighbourhood, and will improve the multiplicity statistics of late M dwarfs. The expected periods range from 3 to 130 years. Several pairs thus have good potential for accurate mass determination in this poorly sampled mass range.

Key words: binaries: visual -- stars: low-mass, brown dwarfs -- techniques: high angular resolution -- instrumentation: adaptive optics

© ESO 2006

The OpenURL standard is a protocol for transmission of metadata describing the resource that you wish to access. An OpenURL link contains article metadata and directs it to the OpenURL server of your choice. The OpenURL server can provide access to the resource and also offer complementary services (specific search engine, export of references...). The OpenURL link can be generated by different means.

• If your librarian has set up your subscription with an OpenURL resolver, OpenURL links appear automatically on the abstract pages.
• You can define your own OpenURL resolver with your EDPS Account. In this case your choice will be given priority over that of your library.
• You can use an add-on for your browser (Firefox or I.E.) to display OpenURL links on a page (see http://www.openly.com/openurlref/). You should disable this module if you wish to use the OpenURL server that you or your library have defined.