The Distribution of Separations of DMSA Hipparcos Catalogue

Abstract

AbstractWe have constructed volume-limited samples of wide binaries in the Hipparcos Catalogue Double and Multiple Systems Annex (DMSA, Section C), out to distances of 100 pc and 200 pc. We study the distribution of linear separations for these samples of binaries. We find that they closely follow Öpik’s distribution in the interval of separations between about 10 and 800 AU (for the 100 pc sample), and between 15 and 1400 AU (for the 200 pc sample)