Isolated Binaries and Triples in N-body Systems

Extract

Stars show a marked tendency to form the systems of different multiplicity starting from the smallest systems as binary and triple stars up to clusters with a significantly larger number of objects (N ~ 10⁷ for globular cluster s). Different investigators have used different methods of binary stars identificati on but modern observations give a frequency of binary and multiple stars in the Galactic field up to 70% Binary and multiple stars are also often present within star clusters. It is therefore very important to be able to identify such systems as rather isolated substructures in which the dynamical evolution is not significantly affected by other stars (at least, during some considerab le time interval).