Identifying the ejected population from disintegrating multiple systems

TL;DR

This paper investigates disintegrating multiple star systems, especially those involving ultra-cool dwarfs, using catalog data and kinematic analysis to identify candidate systems and understand their properties.

Contribution

It introduces methods for identifying disintegrating multiple systems with ultra-cool dwarfs using catalog data, proper motions, and positional tracking.

Findings

Identified one candidate quadruple disintegrating system.

Found two candidate binary disintegrating systems.

Demonstrated techniques for searching disintegrating systems in multiple catalogs.

Abstract

Kinematic studies of the Hipparcos catalogue have revealed associations that are best explained as disintegrating multiple systems, presumably resulting from a dynamical encounter between single/multiple systems in the field (Li et al. 2009). In this work we explore the possibility that known ultra-cool dwarfs may be components of disintegrating multiple systems, and consider the implications for the properties of these objects. We will present here the methods/techniques that can be used to search for and identify disintegrating benchmark systems in three database/catalogues: Dwarf Archive, the Hipparcos Main Catalogue, and the Gliese-Jahrei{\ss} Catalogue. Placing distance constraints on objects with parallax or colour-magnitude information from spectrophotometry allowed us to identify common distance associations. Proper motion measurements allowed us to separate common proper motion multiples from our sample of disintegrating candidates. Moreover, proper motion and positional information allowed us to select candidate systems based on relative component positions that were tracked back and projected forward through time. Using this method we identified one candidate disintegrating quadruple association, and two candidate disintegrating binaries, all of them containing one ultra-cool dwarf.