Can I read Probing the low-mass end of the companion mass function for O-type stars on EtoBox?

Probing the low-mass end of the companion mass function for O-type stars by Reggiani, M.; Rainot, A.; Sana, H.; Almeida, L. A.; Caballero-Nieves, S.; Kratter, K.; Lacour, S.; LeBouquin, J. -B.; Zinnecker, H. is a scholarly article available to read on EtoBox.

What is Probing the low-mass end of the companion mass function for O-type stars about?

Almost all massive stars are part of a binary system. Given the wide range of separations at which these companions are found, several observational techniques have been adopted to characterize them, but contrasts greater than 4 in the H-band have never been reached between 0".1 and 1". We used VLT/SPHERE to observe simultaneously with the IRDIS and IFS sub-systems 18 O-type stars within 6 kpc and ages between 1-5 Myrs to probe the existence of stellar companions in the angular separation range from 0".15 to 6" down to very low mass ratios. The IFS YJH- band observations have allowed us to probe the presence of sub-solar companions in a 1".7x1".7 field-of-view down to magnitude limits of deltaH=10 at 0".4. In the wider 12"x12" IRDIS field-of-view, we reached contrasts of deltaK=12 at 1", enabling us to look for even fainter companions. This paper presents five newly discovered intermediate (<1") separation companions, three of which are smaller than 0.2M_sun. If confirmed by future analyses of proper motions, these new detections represent the lowest-mass companions ever found around O-type stars. Assuming that all sources detected within 1" are physically bound, the observed fract

Author

Reggiani, M.; Rainot, A.; Sana, H.; Almeida, L. A.; Caballero-Nieves, S.; Kratter, K.; Lacour, S.; LeBouquin, J. -B.; Zinnecker, H.

Published

2021

Language

EN