Statistical analysis of binary stars from the Gaia catalogue DR2

TL;DR

This paper introduces a statistical method to analyze Gaia DR2 data, identifying binary star candidates and estimating their orbital periods and masses through 2D and 3D analysis.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel statistical procedure for 3D analysis of binary stars using Gaia DR2 data, including probability estimation and orbital parameter inference.

Findings

Confirmed binary presence in Gaia DR1 data

Created a catalogue of 80,560 binary candidates

Estimated average orbital periods and masses

Abstract

We have developed a general statistical procedure for analysis of 2D and 3D finite patterns, which is applied to the data from recently released Gaia-ESA catalogue DR2. The 2D analysis clearly confirms our former results on the presence of binaries in the former DR1 catalogue. Our main objective is the statistical 3D analysis of DR2. For this, it is essential that the DR2 catalogue includes parallaxes and data on the proper motion. The analysis allows us to determine for each pair of stars the probability that it is the binary star. This probability is represented by the function \b{eta}({\Delta}) depending on the separation. Further, a combined analysis of the separation with proper motion provides a clear picture of binaries with two components of the motion: parallel and orbital. The result of this analysis is an estimate of the average orbital period and mass of the binary system. The catalogue we have created involves 80560 binary candidates.