Multiple stellar systems

Extract

A spectroscopic survey of visual binaries with known orbital elements has been carried out with the radial velocity scanner CORAVEL at the Haute-Provence Observatory, since 1977, (Baranne, Mayor, Poncet, 1979). This survey of more than 100 visual systems, selected from Dommanget's catalogue (1967) (see also a new edition 1982) was first devoted to the determination of stellar masses. Several multiple systems were detected and have permitted also a study of the structure of triple systems. We have detected and measured in particular a class of triple systems with radial velocity variations of small amplitude. Taking advantage of the high resolution and high signal-to-noise ratio accessible with the cross-correlation technique, such small amplitude radial velocity curves are sometimes derived only through the change of width and shape of the cross-correlation function. Let us recall that the cc-function of a SB2 (or SB3) system is only the weighted sum of the individual cc-functions (Mayor, 1985). This property of the cross-correlation combined with the linearity of the detector allow a very simple analysis of blended dips. The full width at half depth of the cross-correlation dip is about FWHD = 16 km/s (in absence of noticeable rotation). Analysis of blended systems allows a good determination of the two individual velocities if the difference |v_r1 -V_r2| is equal or larger than about 0.15 *FWHD (about 2 km/s).