Duplicity in Hubble Space Telescope Guide Stars Fine Guidance Sensor Serendipitous Survey R

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1012PublicationsoftheAstronomicalSocietyofthePacific,110:1012–1025,1998September᭧1998.TheAstronomicalSocietyofthePacific.Allrightsreserved.PrintedinU.S.A.

DuplicityinHubbleSpaceTelescopeGuideStars:FineGuidanceSensorSerendipitousSurveyResults

GlennSchneiderStewardObservatory,933NorthCherryAvenue,UniversityofArizona,Tucson,AZ85721;gschneider@as.arizona.eduJohnL.HersheyAstronomyPrograms,ComputerSciencesCorporation,SpaceTelescopeScienceInstitute,3700SanMartinDrive,Baltimore,MD21218;hershey@stsci.eduandMichaelT.Wenz

AlliedSignalAerospace,GuidanceandControlSystems,P.O.Box70,GlennDale,MD20769-0070;Wenz.Mike@lmmail.hst.nasa.govReceived1996March17;accepted1998May22

ABSTRACT.DatafromtheHubbleSpaceTelescope(HST)FineGuidanceSensor(FGS)interferometers,covering22monthsofguide-staracquisitionoperations,havebeenanalyzedforevidenceofstellarduplicity.Thedatacompriseasurveyofobservedguidestars,allofwhicharetakenfromtheHSTGuideStarCatalog,ranginginmagnitudefrom9to14.Thesurveyresultscoveraparameterspaceforthenewlyfounddoubles,forthefainterstars,whichareofsmallerlimitingangularseparationsthaninanyprevioussurveys.ThenormalHSTengineeringtelemetrydatafrom13,979acquisitionson4882starshavebeenprocessed.TheFGSguidancedatacanrevealduplicitywithseparationsrangingfromapproximately30mas,forthebrighterstars,withsmallmagnitudedifferences,uptotheneighborhoodof500mas,andinsomecasesto1000mas.Thefractionofguidestarsindicatingduplicityisafunctionofthestatisticalcriteriausedbutisover5%ataveryhighlevelofconfidence.Itispossiblethatifsomeofthebrighterandcloserpairscouldbeidentifiedasnearby,thentheirorbitalmotionswouldberapidenoughtoallowamassanddistancedeterminationonatimescaleofadecadeiffollowedwithground-basedinterferometricandspectroscopicinstruments.Abriefcatalogofdoublesisgiven,nearlyallofwhichareofcertainduplicity.Informationforaccessingon-linecatalogsoflargenumbersofstarswithlesser,butneverthelessstrong,probabilitiesofduplicityandalsoforthesolutionsforduplicityfromallacquisitionsisprovided.

1.INTRODUCTIONObservationswiththeHubbleSpaceTelescope(HST)re-quirelockingtheFineGuidanceSensors(FGSs)ontothein-terferometricfringesofguidestars.Normally,formaintainingahighlystableplacementoftargetsinthevariousscienceinstrumentapertures,twoguidestarsareused,oneineachoftwoFGSunits(ofthreeFGSunitsonboardHST).StarsusedforguidanceareselectedfromtheHSTGuideStarCatalog(GSC).TheGSC,whichisavailableonCD-ROMsfromvar-ioussources,hasbeenthoroughlydescribedinthreepapers(Laskeretal.1990;Russelletal.1990;Jenkneretal.1990).ThestarsusedforguidancespantheentireGSCmagnituderange,fromapproximately9to14mag.GuidestarsforeachHSTpointingarechosenbytheHSTScienceOperationsGroundSystemusingasoftwaresystemcalledtheGuideStarSelectionSystem,developedatSTScI.TheFGSinstrumentsonHSTareuniqueintheirabilitytodetectquicklystellarduplicityatasmallfractionofanarcsecondwithhighprecisionatthefaintendoftheGSCmagnituderange,sinceground-basedinterferometrictechniquesaregenerallylimitedtobrighterstars.Bycomparison,theHipparcosresultsarecom-pleteonlytoamagnitudeof10.5,withalimitingmagnitude(sparselycovered)of12.4andwithmuchlowerresolution.PriortoHSTcycle5,acquisitiondatawerenormallytele-meteredtothegroundwithasamplingrateof1Hz.Thistemporalresolutionwastoocoarsetoyieldinformationontheshapeoftheinterferometerfringes.Beginninginearly1995,anewengineeringtelemetryformatcalled“HN”wasadoptedfornormaloperationstopermitdetailedengineeringstudiesofthedegradingmechanicalbehavioroftheFGSstar-selectorservos.TheHNformatprovidesFGSservopositionsandpho-tomultipliertube(PMT)countsat40Hz,andthisallowstheshapesofthestarfringesfromtheinterferometerstobeana-lyzedandaserendipitousduplicitysurveytobecarriedoutinparallelwiththeplannedresearchofHST.TheFGSinstrumentscanalsobeusedtodetermineaccu-ratelytherelativepositionsofstarsintheFGSfieldsofviewandfordouble-starstudiesbyhigh-resolutioninterferometerDUPLICITYINHSTGUIDESTARS:FGSRESULTS10131998PASP,110:1012–1025fringescanning(Benedictetal.1992).IntheTRANSmodeofastrometricobserving,anFGSrepeatedlyscanstheinter-ferometricfringesofthetargetstarinmilliarcsecondorsmallerstepsandtherebyachievesamuchhigherspatialresolutionthanisobtainedinthenormalguide-staracquisitionmode.Butobservationsforplannedastrometricresearchrequirededicatedtelescopetimeandmustcompetewithallotherscientificpro-gramsforapproval.TheastrometricinformationfromHSTguide-staracquisitionsmaybeobtainedatnoadditionalcostofspacecrafttimeforallHSTguide-starobservations.Theacquisitionfringeinformationisobtainedinasinglescanwithaspatialsamplingof6masalongeachofthetwoorthogonalinterferometricaxes.Roughly7000guide-staracquisitionsperyeartakeplaceaspartofnormaloperationsforallscientificprograms.Ofthe13,979acquisitionsspanning22monthsoftelescopeoperationinthepresentstudy,thenumberofuniquestarsob-servedwas4882oraboutone-thirdofthetotalnumberofacquisitions.Thesenumbersimplythreewalkdownsperstar,buttherepeatedacquisitionsarenotequallydistributed.Somescientificprogramsrepeatobservationsmanytimesonthesametargetwhileothersinvolveonlyasinglevisittoatarget.Thedouble-stardetectionsfromtheFGSacquisitiondataarenotbiasedbytheduplicityscreeningprocessusedintheformationoftheGSC.TheGSChasexcludedstarsthatappearasdoubleontheSchmidtastrographplates,buttheseparationdetectionlimitwasafewarcseconds.TheFGSdouble-stardetectionsarewellbelowthatlevel.TheFGSinterferometerfringesformedbytheguidestarscanrevealduplicityfromroughly30mastotheneighborhoodof500mas.Limitsvarygreatlydependingonthestarbright-ness,themagnitudeofthecompanion,andotherfactors.Sep-arationsofover1ЉarepossibleintherarecasesofdoublesthatcausetheFineGuidanceElectronics(FGE)tofailtorec-ognizeafringeandthuscontinuethescanuptoward2Љ.Mag-nitudedifferencesfrom0to2aretypical,andhighervaluesupto,andsomewhatover,3arepossibleforstarsatthebrightendoftheguide-starmagnituderangeandatthelargerseparations.ThebrighterstarsintheGSCarepreferredforthebestguidingperformance,butthebrighteststarsavailableinthesmallFGSfieldsofviewareoftenatthefaintendoftheGSCmagnituderange.All-skyplotsoftheguide-starcoordinatesrevealaratherisotropicdistributionofHSTpointings.TheHSTextragalacticresearchprogramsselectagainsttheGalacticplane,leavingnopredominanceoflowgalacticlatitudesandperhapsaslightdeficit.Theincidenceofbinariesinthe9–14magrangewithsep-arationsofasmallfractionofanarcsecondhasnotbeenwellknowninthepast.TheprelaunchestimatesofthestatisticsofguidestarspredictedhigherFGSlock-failureratesduetodu-plicitythanthatfoundinoperations.Theoverestimatewasdueinlargeparttooverlypessimisticpredictionsoftheinstrumentresponsetobinaries(Hershey&Be´ly1994).Thefrequencyofclosebinariesamongtheguidestarsisofinterestfortheplanningoftheguidanceoffuturespacetele-scopesandinterferometers,andallbinarystarstatisticalin-formationrelatesinsomedegreetostellarformationandevolution.Someofthebinariesdiscoveredinthisinvestigationcouldeventuallyyieldstellarmasseswithextendedstudy.