An Interferometric Search for Bright Companions to 51 Pegasi
/ Authors
A. Boden, G. V. van Belle, M. Colavita, P. Dumont, J. Gubler, C. Koresko, S. Kulkarni, B. Lane, D. Mobley, M. Shao
and 2 more authors
/ Abstract
We report on a near-infrared, long-baseline interferometric search for luminous companions to the star 51 Pegasi conducted with the Palomar Testbed Interferometer. Our data is completely consistent with a single-star hypothesis. We find no evidence to suggest a luminous companion to 51 Pegasi, and we can exclude a companion brighter than a ΔK of 4.27 at the 99% confidence level for the 4.2 day orbital period indicated by spectroscopic measurements. This ΔK corresponds to an upper limit in the companion MK of 7.30, which in turn implies a main-sequence companion mass of less than 0.22 M☉.
Journal: The Astrophysical Journal Letters
DOI: 10.1086/311560