Issue |
A&A
Volume 380, Number 1, December II 2001
|
|
---|---|---|
Page(s) | 238 - 244 | |
Section | Interstellar and circumstellar matter | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361:20011401 | |
Published online | 15 December 2001 |
The long-period companions of multiple stars tend to have moderate eccentricities
Sternberg Astronomical Institute, Universitetskii pr. 13, Moscow 119899, Russia Royal Observatory of Belgium, Av. Circulaire 3, Bruxelles 1180, Belgium
Received:
20
April
2001
Accepted:
2
October
2001
We examined the statistics of an angle γ between the radius
vector of a visual companion of a multiple star and the vector of its
apparent relative motion in the system. Its distribution
is related to the orbital eccentricity distribution in the
investigated sample. We found that for the wide physical subsystems of
the 174 objects from the Multiple Star Catalogue
is
bell-shaped.
The Monte-Carlo simulations have shown that our
corresponds to the population of the moderate-eccentricity
orbits and is not compatible with the linear distribution
which follows from stellar dynamics and seems to hold for wide
binaries. This points to the absence of highly elongated orbits among
the outer subsystems of multiple stars. The constraint of dynamical
stability of triple systems is not sufficient to explain the
"rounded-off" outer orbits; instead, we speculate that it can result
from the angular momentum exchange in multiple systems during their
early evolution.
Key words: stars: binaries: visual / stars: formation
© ESO, 2001
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