Joint Astrophysics Colloquium

Joint Astrophysics Seminar

Multiplicity Among Young Stars and Brown Dwarfs

Ray Jayawardhana

Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics
University of Toronto

Multiple systems are a common outcome and an important diagnostic of the star and brown dwarf formation processes. I will highlight some findings on the frequency and properties of multiple systems from on-going adaptive optics imaging and radial velocity surveys. I will also discuss what these surveys tell us about the formation of brown dwarfs both in isolation and as companions to stars, and describe observational attempts to investigate the effect of binary companions on circumstellar disk dissipation.