Observed Orbital Eccentricities
Abstract
For 391 spectroscopic and visual binaries with known orbital elements and having B0-F0 IV or V primaries, we collected the derived eccentricities. As has been found by others, those binaries with periods of a few days have been circularized. However, those with periods up to about 1000 or more days show reduced eccentricities that asymptotically approach a mean value of 0.5 for the longest periods. For those binaries with periods greater than 1000 days their distribution of eccentricities is flat from 0 to nearly 1, indicating that in the formation of binaries there is no preferential eccentricity. The binaries with intermediate periods (10-100 days) lack highly eccentric orbits.
- Publication:
-
The Astrophysical Journal
- Pub Date:
- August 2005
- DOI:
- 10.1086/431207
- Bibcode:
- 2005ApJ...629..507A
- Keywords:
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- Stars: Binaries: Spectroscopic;
- Stars: Binaries: Visual;
- Stellar Dynamics