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Description
We present the results of a comprehensive assessment of companions to solar-type stars. A sample of 454 stars, including the Sun, was selected from the Hipparcos catalog with {pi}>40mas, {sigma}{pi}/{pi}<0.05, 0.5<=B-V<=1.0 (~F6-K3), and constrained by absolute magnitude and color to exclude evolved stars. These criteria are equivalent to selecting all dwarf and subdwarf stars within 25pc with V-band flux between 0.1 and 10 times that of the Sun, giving us a physical basis for the term "solar-type". New observational aspects of this work include surveys for (1) very close companions with long-baseline interferometry at the Center for High Angular Resolution Astronomy Array, (2) close companions with speckle interferometry, and (3) wide proper-motion companions identified by blinking multi-epoch archival images. In addition, we include the results from extensive radial-velocity monitoring programs and evaluate companion information from various catalogs covering many different techniques. The results presented here include four new common proper-motion companions discovered by blinking archival images. Additionally, the spectroscopic data searched reveal five new stellar companions. Our synthesis of results from many methods and sources results in a thorough evaluation of stellar and brown dwarf companions to nearby Sun-like stars. The overall observed fractions of single, double, triple, and higher-order systems are 56%+/-2%, 33%+/-2%, 8%+/-1%, and 3%+/-1%, respectively, counting all confirmed stellar and brown dwarf companions.
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