Young Star Dynamical Mass Ratios Down to and Across the Substellar Boundary

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Having a broad picture of star formation is necessary for understanding both the past and future evolution of our Galaxy. Do star forming regions share global properties, such as initial angular momentum distributions in molecular cloud cores? The frequency, distribution, and properties of young binary stars supply key information. This project is furthering our general understanding of star formation by studying the closest young binary systems in nearby star forming regions. These systems, the spectroscopic binaries, are particularly useful because their radial velocity variations may be measured very precisely and hence their mass ratios and ultimately masses may be accurately determined free of assumptions. The use of high-resolution, infrared spectroscopy for these measurements ensures the identification of even the faintest and lowest mass secondaries in spectroscopic systems. The focus of the proposed projects is on the lower and less well-understood end of the main-sequence. Mass ratio distributions of low-mass spectroscopic binaries will inform us about global characteristics of star formation in different star forming regions. The future determination of absolute masses based on these mass ratios will be crucial for developing accurate models of the formation and evolution of low-mass and substellar objects.Broader impacts: Broad dissemination of results takes the form of publication in refereed journals, press releases, and posters and talks presented at national conferences, enhancing the scientific and technical understanding on the part of the investigator, colleagues, and graduate students. Public access to unique data sets and software applicable to a variety of astrophysical data will be made available on the web.