On Systematic Errors in Cross-Identification of Binary Stars in Gaia

TL;DR

This paper analyzes systematic errors in cross-identifying binary stars in Gaia DR3, highlighting issues in dense fields and high proper motion systems, and proposes modifications to improve reliability.

Contribution

It identifies sources of systematic errors in Gaia binary star cross-identification and suggests improvements to enhance accuracy in dense stellar regions.

Findings

False positives increase in dense stellar fields.

High proper motion systems have higher false negative rates.

Proposed method modifications aim to reduce systematic errors.

Abstract

Using Gaia DR3 data, binary star catalogs have been created containing information on a total of more than 2.6 million pairs. This increases by more than an order of magnitude the ensemble of binary stars with known characteristics, which previously numbered about 140 thousand pairs. To perform statistical analysis of the complete ensemble of binary stars, including both previously known and newly discovered pairs, cross-identification by coordinates was carried out between the most complete pre-Gaia publication compilative binary star catalog ILB and data from binary star catalogs based on Gaia DR3 results. An analysis of the results of this identification was performed, showing the dependence of its characteristics both on the data from the source catalogs and on coordinates. It is shown that in dense stellar fields, particularly in the Galactic disk, an increase in the fraction of false positive identifications can be expected. At the same time, for systems with large proper motion, there is a high probability of a false negative outcome. Possible modifications to the identification method are proposed to reduce the role of the described systematic errors and increase the reliability of its results.