Spectroscopic companions of very young brown dwarfs

Abstract

I review here the results of the first RV survey for spectroscopic companions to very young brown dwarfs (BDs) and (very) low-mass stars in the ChaI star-forming cloud with UVES at the VLT. This survey studies the binary fraction in an as yet unexplored domain not only in terms of primary masses (substellar regime) and ages (a few Myr) but also in terms of companion masses (sensitive down to planetary masses) and separations (< 1 AU). The UVES spectra obtained so far hint at spectroscopic companions of a few Jupiter masses around one BD and around one low-mass star (M4.5) with orbital periods of at least several months. Furthermore, the data indicate a multiplicity fraction consistent with field BDs and stellar binaries for periods < 100 days.