Astrometric Mass Ratios of 248 Long-period Binary Stars Resolved in Hipparcos and Gaia EDR3

Abstract

Using the absolute astrometric positions and proper motions for common stars in the Hipparcos and Gaia catalogs separated by 24.75 yr in the mean epoch, we compute mass ratios for long-period, resolved binary systems without any astrophysical assumptions or dependencies, except the presence of inner binary subsystems that may perturb the observed mean proper motions. The mean epoch positions of binary companions from the Hipparcos Double and Multiple System Annex are used as the first epoch. The mean positions and proper motions of carefully cross-matched counterparts in Gaia EDR3 comprise the second epoch data. Selecting only results with sufficiently high signal-to-noise ratio and discarding numerous optical pairs, we construct a catalog of 248 binary systems, which is published online. Several cases with unusual properties or results are also discussed.