A Comprehensive Search for Wide Ultra-Cool Companions
Peter Allen (University of Pennsylvania)
To date all ultra-cool dwarf binaries discovered have small
separations, <15AU.5 We present the preliminary results of
a search for wide companions to low-mass stars and brown
dwarfs. No wide brown dwarf binaries (20AU - 1000AU) have
been found by our observations. Initial efforts to analyze
our new observations and existing data with a robust
Bayesian statistical approach are discussed. We find that
the companion distribution is not well sampled; therefore,
the possibility of wide brown dwarf-brown dwarf companions
cannot be ruled out. We will explore methods to fully
sample the wide companion distribution.