Constraining the Variability and Binary Fraction of Galactic Center Young Stars

• Main Authors: Gautam, Abhimat K, Do, Tuan, Ghez, Andrea M, Lu, Jessica R, Morris, Mark R, Sakai, Shoko, Witzel, Gunther, Sitarski, Breann N, Chappell, Samantha
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 07-10-2016
• Subjects: Physics - Astrophysics of Galaxies; Physics - Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.1610.02441

We present constraints on the variability and binarity of young stars in the
central 10 arcseconds (~0.4 pc) of the Milky Way Galactic Center (GC) using
Keck Adaptive Optics data over a 12 year baseline. Given our experiment's
photometric uncertainties, at least 36% of our sample's known early-type stars
are variable. We identified eclipsing binary systems by searching for periodic
variability. In our sample of spectroscopically confirmed and likely early-type
stars, we detected the two previously discovered GC eclipsing binary systems.
We derived the likely binary fraction of main sequence, early-type stars at the
GC via Monte Carlo simulations of eclipsing binary systems, and find that it is
at least 32% with 90% confidence.