50"x50" gri composite images from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey of the CPM pairs identified in the SLoWPoKES catalog. Pictured are high-mass ratio pairs (top row), identical twins (middle row), white dwarf-disk dwarf pairs (bottom row, left), and halo SD pairs (bottom row, right). Spectral types based on their r-z colors are shown. Overall, 1342 wide, low-mass binaries were identified (Dhital et al. 2010).
AIMS
- Identify low-mass (mid-K to M spectral types), wide (s > 1000 AU) pairs using astrometric and photometric data.
- Study the properties of wide, low-mass binaries — e.g., distribution of frequency, physical separation, and mass-ratios — and their impication on star formation models.
- Study the higher-order-multiplicity and its implications on stability and formation scenarios of wide pairs.
- Exploit the coevality and similar evolutionary history - while being dynamically independent - of these pairs to empirically measure and/or constrain various properties of low-mass stars, especially the metallicity and mass-age-activity-rotation relations.
- Study the dynamical history and structure of the Milky Way using the disruption rate of wide, low-mass pairs.
- Identify a subset of wide, low-mass binaries that would be optimum for detection of gaseous and terrestrial planets in future astrometric missions like SIM-Lite.
