AAS 198th Meeting, June 2001
Session 47. Variable and Binary Stars - Spectroscopy
Display, Tuesday, June 5, 2001, 10:00am-6:30pm, Exhibit Hall

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[47.02] The Smallest Mass Ratio Young Star Spectroscopic Binaries

L. Prato (UCLA), M. Simon (SUNY-SB), T. Mazeh (Tel Aviv), I. McLean (UCLA), D. Norman (SUNY-SB), S. Zucker (Tel Aviv)

We present initial results from our search for low-mass secondary stars in pre-main-sequence (PMS) single-lined spectroscopic systems (SB1s) using NIRSPEC on Keck II. Infrared spectroscopy provides a sensitive probe of visually discovered SB1s, since the black body flux ratio in the H-band of a 3000 K to a 4300 K star is 0.4, about ten times greater than in the V-band. By cross-correlating the young SB spectra with our observed library of spectral type standard stars, we have identified the cool secondaries in several systems, including Parenago 1771 and 1925. The preliminary mass ratio derived for the latter is 0.32±.05, the smallest ever measured for a PMS SB.


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