The dynamical evolution of very-low mass binaries in open clusters

TL;DR

This study investigates how the dynamical evolution in open clusters affects very-low-mass binary systems, revealing that close binaries are likely primordial while wider binaries are destroyed or formed during cluster dissolution.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed analysis of the dynamical evolution of VLMBs in clusters, highlighting the impact on different separation ranges and implications for their initial populations.

Findings

Close VLMBs (<20 au) are likely primordial and unaffected by cluster density.

Wide VLMBs (>100 au) can be destroyed in dense clusters, indicating initial populations had more wide binaries.

Similar processing of M-dwarf binaries suggests different birth populations or observational biases.

Abstract

Very low-mass binaries (VLMBs), with system masses <0.2 Msun appear to have very different properties to stellar binaries. This has led to the suggestion that VLMBs form a distinct and different population. As most stars are born in clusters, dynamical evolution can significantly alter any initial binary population, preferentially destroying wide binaries. In this paper we examine the dynamical evolution of initially different VLMB distributions in clusters to investigate how different the initial and final distributions can be. We find that the majority of the observed VLMB systems, which have separations <20 au, cannot be destroyed in even the densest clusters. Therefore, the distribution of VLMBs with separations <20 au now must have been the birth population (although we note that the observations of this population may be very incomplete). Most VLMBs with separations >100 au can be destroyed in high-density clusters, but are mainly unaffected in low-density clusters. Therefore, the initial VLMB population must contain many more binaries with these separations than now, or such systems must be made by capture during cluster dissolution. M-dwarf binaries are processed in the same way as VLMBs and so the difference in the current field populations either points to fundamentally different birth populations, or significant observational incompleteness in one or both samples.