An Etymological Dictionary of Astronomy and Astrophysics

The fraction of stars that have at least one → companion. It is at least 50%. The binary fraction appears to increase with increasing → primary star mass, at least among the more massive stars: the → O stars and → B stars have a companion frequency of at least 70%, while for the → G stars the binary frequency is around 50% and the → M stars may have an even lower binary frequency of around 30-40%. Brown dwarfs are rare as companions to lower-main-sequence stars, although brown-dwarf binaries appear not to be rare. An increase in binary frequency with mass would be expected if most stars form in → multiple systems that disintegrate, since the more massive stars would then preferentially remain in binaries while the less massive ones would preferentially be ejected as single stars (see Richard B. Larson, 2001, in IAU Symposium 200, p. 93 and references therein).

See also: → binary; → frequency.