The POKEMON Speckle Survey of Nearby M-dwarfs

We present results from the POKEMON (Pervasive Overview of Kompanions of Every M-dwarf in Our Neighborhood) survey, the most exhaustive stellar multiplicity survey every produced of the objects that comprise over 70% of the stars in our galaxy: the M-dwarfs. We have conducted a volume-limited survey through M9 that inspected, at diffraction-limited resolution, every M-dwarf out to 15pc, with additional brighter targets to 25pc. POKEMON utilized Lowell Observatory's 4.3-m Discovery Channel Telescope with the Differential Speckle Survey Instrument (DSSI @ DCT), along with the NN-Explore Exoplanet Stellar Speckle Imager (NESSI) on the 3.5-m WIYN telescope, to directly image low-mass companions to these M-dwarfs. Given the priority these targets have for exoplanet studies with TESS, and in the future JWST - and the degree to which initially undetected multiplicity has skewed Kepler results - a comprehensive survey of our nearby low-mass neighbors provides a homogeneous, complete catalog of fundamental utility. Prior knowledge of secondary objects - or robust non-detections, as captured by this survey - immediately clarify the nature of exoplanet transit detections from these current and upcoming missions. We report the discovery of 20+ new companions and identify candidate multi-star systems. We establish the most up-to-date M-dwarf multiplicity rate, and obtain sufficient statistics to determine, for the first time, M-dwarf multiplicity as a function of subtype.