Four new wide binaries among exoplanet host stars

Abstract

In our ongoing survey for wide (sub)stellar companions of exoplanet host stars we have found 4 new co-moving stellar companions of the stars HD 114729, HD 16141, HD 196050 and HD 213240 with projected separations from 223 up to 3898 AU. The companionship of HD 114729 B, HD 196050 B and HD 213240 C is confirmed by photometry and spectroscopy, all being early M dwarfs. The masses of the detected companions are derived from their infrared JHK magnitudes and range between 0.146 and 0.363 . Our first and second epoch observations can rule out additional stellar companions around the primaries from ~200 up to ~2400 AU (). In our survey we have found so far 6 new binaries among the exoplanet host stars. According to these new detections, the reported differences between single-star and binary-star planets with orbital periods short than 40 days remain significant in both the mass-period and eccentricity-period distribution. In contrast, all exoplanets with orbital periods longer than 100 days tend to display similar distributions.