The Solar Neighborhood LVI: The RMSTAR Catalog of the Nearest 3352 M Dwarf Systems and 305 of their Wide Companions
Abstract
We present the RMSTAR (RECONS M STAR) catalog, a 25 pc volume-limited and effectively volume-complete sample of the nearest 3352 M dwarf systems and their 305 wide stellar and 9 brown dwarf companions. RMSTAR has been created using only results from Gaia Data Releases 3 (GDR3) and 2 (GDR2), Hipparcos, and ground-based discoveries of M dwarf systems that are not available in the space-based results. The wide companions are identified using only results from GDR3 and GDR2, and have separations ρ≥0.''46. There are 291 primaries with stellar companions, yielding a multiplicity rate of 8.68±0.49% for these widely separated systems, with a rate of 6.86±0.44% for projected separations s≥30 au, where the sample of stellar companions is complete except perhaps for a few fringe cases. It is shown that the rate of stellar companions increases from the search limit of 30,000 au down to separations of 30 au, with a large set of companions to be characterized at closer separations in future work. We determine luminosity and mass functions for all stellar red dwarfs and their wide secondaries, finding that the luminosity function displays a classic turnover at MG∼11, whereas the mass function is described by an exponential function that rises from 0.60 M⊙ to the end of the stellar main sequence at 0.075 M⊙. We assess the large population of close, unresolved companions to M dwarfs by analyzing several Gaia parameters, identifying 1089 (30%) individual sources as having at least one of these elevated unresolved companion indication parameters.
Related
- SOPHIE and TESS characterization of fourteen TESS objects of interest: Nine planetary systems and five low-mass stellar companions
- Tracing the Influence of Distant companions on Exoplanetary Systems (TIDES) I. Highly Eccentric and Misaligned Binary Companions to Hot Jupiters
- Transiting Planetary Systems with Distant Giant Companions Remain Moderately Coplanar
- Two extremely irradiated volatile-rich sub-Neptunes with companions in the TOI-426 and TOI-1839 systems: Insights into arrival and survival near the lower edge of the Neptunian desert
- TS23/McDonald and FIES/NOT strike again. Two new warm Jupiter systems and outer companions in a third
BibTeX
@misc{leblanc2026solar,
title = {{The Solar Neighborhood LVI: The RMSTAR Catalog of the Nearest 3352 M Dwarf Systems and 305 of their Wide Companions}},
author = {Madison R. LeBlanc and Tim M. Johns and Todd J. Henry and Kenneth J. Slatten and Jennifer G. Winters and Wei-Chun Jao and Aman Kar and Michele L. Silverstein and Eliot Halley Vrijmoet and Casey Rush and Andrew A. Couperus},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.17729},
eprint = {2609.17729},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.17729},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - The Solar Neighborhood LVI: The RMSTAR Catalog of the Nearest 3352 M Dwarf Systems and 305 of their Wide Companions
AU - Madison R. LeBlanc
AU - Tim M. Johns
AU - Todd J. Henry
AU - Kenneth J. Slatten
AU - Jennifer G. Winters
AU - Wei-Chun Jao
AU - Aman Kar
AU - Michele L. Silverstein
AU - Eliot Halley Vrijmoet
AU - Casey Rush
AU - Andrew A. Couperus
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/28
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.17729
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.17729
AB - We present the RMSTAR (RECONS M STAR) catalog, a 25 pc volume-limited and effectively volume-complete sample of the nearest 3352 M dwarf systems and their 305 wide stellar and 9 brown dwarf companions. RMSTAR has been created using only results from Gaia Data Releases 3 (GDR3) and 2 (GDR2), Hipparcos, and ground-based discoveries of M dwarf systems that are not available in the space-based results. The wide companions are identified using only results from GDR3 and GDR2, and have separations ρ≥0.''46. There are 291 primaries with stellar companions, yielding a multiplicity rate of 8.68±0.49% for these widely separated systems, with a rate of 6.86±0.44% for projected separations s≥30 au, where the sample of stellar companions is complete except perhaps for a few fringe cases. It is shown that the rate of stellar companions increases from the search limit of 30,000 au down to separations of 30 au, with a large set of companions to be characterized at closer separations in future work. We determine luminosity and mass functions for all stellar red dwarfs and their wide secondaries, finding that the luminosity function displays a classic turnover at M_G∼11, whereas the mass function is described by an exponential function that rises from 0.60 M_⊙ to the end of the stellar main sequence at 0.075 M_⊙. We assess the large population of close, unresolved companions to M dwarfs by analyzing several Gaia parameters, identifying 1089 (30%) individual sources as having at least one of these elevated unresolved companion indication parameters.
ER -