Characterizing Undetected Stellar Companions with Combined Datasets

TL;DR

This paper introduces MOLUSC, a framework combining multiple datasets to constrain properties of unseen stellar companions, aiding in understanding binary systems' influence on planetary and stellar evolution.

Contribution

The paper presents MOLUSC, a novel method integrating astrometric, imaging, and velocity data to characterize undetected stellar companions.

Findings

Ruling out stellar false positives in specific systems.

Demonstrating potential to estimate missing companions in stellar samples.

Highlighting MOLUSC's future application in studying binary influence on planet occurrence.

Abstract

Binaries play a critical role in the formation, evolution, and fundamental properties of planets, stars, and stellar associations. Observational studies in these areas often include a mix of observations aimed at detecting or ruling out the presence of stellar companions. Rarely can non-detections rule out all possible binary configurations. Here we present MOLUSC, our framework for constraining the range of properties of unseen companions using astrometric, imaging, and velocity information. We showcase the use of MOLUSC on a number of systems, ruling out stellar false positives in the signals of HIP67522b, and DS Tuc Ab. We also demonstrate how MOLUSC could be used to predict the number of missing companions in a stellar sample using the ZEIT sample of young planet hosts. Although our results are not significant, with a larger sample MOLUSC could be used to see if close-in planets are less common in young binary systems, as is seen for their older counterparts.