Statistical analysis of a sample of spectroscopic binaries containing late-type giants.

We present a catalogue of red giant spectroscopic binaries obtained from an extensive survey of the literature and containing 213 systems. We perform a statistical analysis of the orbital elements (period, eccentricity, mass function) characterizing those systems. From the eccentricity-period diagram, we deduce a circularisation cut-off period around 70 days and we find an eccentricity-period correlation that seemingly does not result from an observational bias. With the aid of two complementary methods, we derive the mass ratio distribution. A comparison with the observed mass function distribution shows a reasonably good agreement in the case of a uniform mass ratio distribution function and a single-valued giant mass of 1.5 M_sun. We finally present a comparison with a sample of barium stars.