학술논문

The Eccentricity Distribution of Wide Binaries
Document Type
Working Paper
Source
MNRS L Volume 518, Issue 1, January 2023, Pages L51-L56
Subject
Astrophysics - Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies
Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
Language
Abstract
Future Gaia and Legacy Survey of Space and Time data releases, together with wide area spectroscopic surveys, will deliver large samples of resolved binary stars with phase space coordinates, albeit with low-cadence. Given an eccentricity law $f(\epsilon)$, we derive properties of (i) the velocity distribution $v/\sqrt{G M/r}$ normalised by the value for a circular orbit at the measured separation $r$; (ii) the astrometric acceleration distributions $a/\left(G M/r^2\right)$ again normalised to the circular orbit value. Our formulation yields analytic predictions for the full statistical distribution for some commonly used eccentricity laws, if the timescale of data-sampling is comparable to or exceeds the binary period. In particular, the velocity distribution for the linear eccentricity law is surprisingly simple. With Bayesian analysis, we suggest a method to infer the eccentricity distribution based on the measured velocity distribution.
Comment: 6 figures; 6 pages