Astron. Astrophys. Suppl. Ser. 136, 429-444

A search for spectroscopic binaries among Herbig Ae/Be stars

P. Corporon - A.-M. Lagrange

Send offprint request: P. Corporon

Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de l'Observatoire de Grenoble, BP. 53, F-38041 Grenoble Cedex, France

Received March 4; accepted November 17, 1998

Abstract:

We present the results of a spectroscopic survey of binaries among 42 bright (m_V<11) Herbig Ae/Be stars in both hemispheres. Radial velocity variations were found in 7 targets, 4 are new spectroscopic binaries. The Li I 6708Å absorption line (absent feature in simple HAeBe stars spectra) indicates the presence of a cooler companion in 6 HAeBe spectrum binaries, 4 of which are new detections. Few stars classified as possible Herbig Ae/Be stars are not confirmed as such.

While for short-period (P<100 days) spectroscopic binaries, the observed binary frequency is 10%, the true spectroscopic binary frequency for Herbig Ae/Be stars may be as high as 35%.

Key words: binaries: spectroscopic -- stars: early-type -- stars: pre-Main Sequence -- stars: statistics