A dearth of short-period massive binaries in the young massive star forming region M?17 - Evidence for a large orbital separation at birth?

摘要

Aims. The formation of massive stars remains poorly understood and little is known about their birth multiplicity properties. Here, we aim to quantitatively investigate the strikingly low radial-velocity dispersion measured for a sample of 11 massive pre- and near-main-sequence stars (σ1D= 5.6 ± 0.2 km?s-1) in the very young massive star forming region M?17, in order to obtain first constraints on the multiplicity properties of young massive stellar objects.