Catalogue of Spectroscopic Binary Orbits

The catalogue of spectroscopic binary orbits (SB) is a compilation of orbital data for spectroscopic binary stars which have been produced since 1969 by Alan Henry Batten of the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory^[1] and various collaborators.^[2] At the 24th International Astronomical Union general assembly, in 2000, a working group was established to take responsibility for maintenance of the catalogue, and to take it from a paper based system to an online database.^[3] The 9th catalogue was published in 2004.^[2]

As of 7 August 2009, the catalogue database contained information on over 2940 binary systems,^[4] increasing to 3722 in March 2019. The main components of the current SB9 catalogue, as a work in progress, can be downloaded in gzipped tar ball format.^[5]

Applications

The catalogue is used for a variety of purposes:

• Completeness assessments and statistical analysis
• Generation of H–R diagrams and definition of shortest period
• Computation of period & eccentricity relationships