The Ophiuchus DIsc Survey Employing ALMA (ODISEA). II. The effect of stellar multiplicity on disc properties

TL;DR

This study uses near-infrared AO imaging to investigate how stellar multiplicity affects circumstellar disc properties in the Ophiuchus molecular cloud, revealing that binaries tend to have smaller, less massive discs than single stars.

Contribution

First near-infrared AO survey of ODISEA targets, providing new binary detections and detailed analysis of disc properties in relation to stellar multiplicity.

Findings

Discs in multiple systems have lower dust masses than in single stars.

Discs with >10 M⊕ are only around binaries with separations >110 au.

Most discs are small and low-mass, minimizing binary effects on the overall population.

Abstract

We present Adaptive Optics (AO) near infrared (NIR) observations using VLT/NACO and Keck/NIRC2 of ODISEA targets. ODISEA is an ALMA survey of the entire population of circumstellar discs in the Ophiuchus molecular cloud. From the whole sample of ODISEA we select all the discs that are not already observed in the NIR with AO and that are observable with NACO or NIRC2. The NIR-ODISEA survey consists of 147 stars observed in NIR AO imaging for the first time, as well as revisiting almost all the binary systems of Ophiuchus present in the literature (20 out of 21). In total, we detect 20 new binary systems and one triple system. For each of them we calculate the projected separation and position angle of the companion, as well as their NIR and millimeter flux ratios. From the NIR contrast we derived the masses of the secondaries, finding that 9 of them are in the sub-stellar regime (30-50 \MJup). Discs in multiple systems reach a maximum total dust mass of $\sim$ 50 M$_{\oplus}$, while discs in single stars can reach a dust mass of 200 M$_{\oplus}$. Discs with masses above 10 M$_{\oplus}$ are found only around binaries with projected separations larger than $\sim$ 110 au. The maximum disc size is also larger around single star than binaries. However, since most discs in Ophiuchus are very small and low-mass, the effect of visual binaries is relatively weak in the general disc population.