Resolved double-lined spectroscopic binaries: A neglected source of hypothesis-free parallaxes and stellar masses

Abstract

Double-lined spectroscopic binaries, once visually resolved (VB-SB2), provide hypothesis-free orbital parallaxes and masses of both components. Unlike eclipsing-spectroscopic binaries for which many accurate masses are already known (Andersen 1991; Andersen 1997), the number of VB-SB2 remains rather small. This paper presents 40 such systems for which published visual observations and radial velocities allow a simultaneous adjustment of both data sets. The precision of the individual masses as well as the evolution of that precision with respect to the published precision is investigated.