Proper Motion of the Faint Star near KIC 8462852 (Boyajians Star) - Not a Binary System


Abstract in English

A faint star located 2 arcsec from KIC 8462852 was discovered in Keck 10 m adaptive optics imaging in the $JHK$ near-infrared (NIR) in 2014 by Boyajian et al. (2016). The closeness of the star to KIC 8462852 suggested the two could constitute a binary, which might have implications for the cause of the brightness dips seen by {it Kepler} (Boyajian et al. (2016) and in ground-based optical studies Boyajian et al. (2018). Here, NIR imaging in 2017 using the Mimir instrument resolved the pair and enabled measuring their separation. The faint star had moved $67 pm 7$ milliarcsec (mas) relative to KIC 8462852 since 2014. The relative proper motion of the faint star is $23.9 pm 2.6$ mas yr$^{-1}$, for a tangential velocity of $45 pm 5$ km s$^{-1}$ if it is at the same 390 pc distance as KIC 8462852. Circular velocity at the 750 AU current projected separation is $1.5$ km s$^{-1}$, hence the star pair cannot be bound.

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