A SURVEY OF STELLAR FAMILIES: MULTIPLICITY OF SOLAR-TYPE STARS

We present the results of a comprehensive assessment of companions to solar-type stars. A sample of 454 stars, including the Sun, was selected from the Hipparcos catalog with π>40 mas, σπ/π < 0.05, 0.5 ⩽ B − V ⩽ 1.0 (∼F6–K3), and constrained by absolute magnitude and color to exclude evolved stars. These criteria are equivalent to selecting all dwarf and subdwarf stars within 25 pc with V-band flux between 0.1 and 10 times that of the Sun, giving us a physical basis for the term “solar-type. ” New observational aspects of this work include surveys for (1) very close companions with long-baseline interferometry at the Center for High Angular Resolution Astronomy Array, (2) close companions with speckle interferometry, and (3) wide proper-motion companions identified by blinking multi-epoch archival images. In addition, we include the results from extensive radial-velocity monitoring programs and evaluate companion information from various catalogs covering many different techniques. The results presented here include four new common proper-motion companions discovered by blinking archival images. Additionally, the spectroscopic data searched reveal five new stellar companions. Our synthesis of results from many methods and sources results in a thorough evaluation of stellar and brown dwarf companions to nearby Sun-like stars. The overall observed fractions of single, double, triple, and higher-order systems are 56% ± 2%, 33% ± 2%, 8% ± 1%, and 3% ± 1%, respectively, counting all confirmed stellar and brown dwarf companions. If all candidate, i.e., unconfirmed, companions identified are found to be real, the percentages would change to 54% ± 2%, 34% ± 2%, 9% ± 2%, and 3% ± 1%, respectively. Our completeness analysis indicates that only a few undiscovered companions remain in this well-studied sample, implying that the majority (54% ± 2%) of solar-type stars are single, in contrast to the results of prior multiplicity studies. Our sample is large enough to enable a check of the multiplicity dependence on various physical parameters by analyzing appropriate subsamples. Bluer, more massive stars are seen as more likely to have companions than redder, less massive ones, consistent with the trend seen over the entire spectral range. Systems with larger interaction cross sections, i.e., those with more than two components or long orbital periods, are preferentially younger, suggesting that companions may be stripped over time by dynamical interactions. We confirm the planet–metallicity correlation (i.e., higher metallicity stars are more likely to host planets), but are unable to check it for brown dwarfs due to the paucity of such companions, implying that the brown dwarf desert extends over all separation regimes. We find no correlation between stellar companions and metallicity for B − V < 0.625, but among the redder subset, metal-poor stars ([Fe/H] <−0.3) are more likely to have companions with a 2. 4σ significance. The orbital-period distribution of companions is unimodal and roughly log normal with a peak and median of about 300 years. The period–eccentricity relation shows the expected circularization for periods below 12 days, caused by tidal forces over the age of the Galaxy, followed by a roughly flat distribution. The mass-ratio distribution shows a preference for like-mass pairs, which occur more frequently in relatively close pairs. The fraction of planet hosts among single, binary, and multiple systems are statistically indistinguishable, suggesting that planets are as likely to form around single stars as they are around components of binary or multiple systems with sufficiently wide separations. This, along with the preference of long orbital periods among stellar systems, increases the space around stars conducive for planet formation, and perhaps life.