A critique of disentangling as a method of deriving spectroscopic orbits

R. I. Hynes, University of Sussex
P. F.L. Maxted, University of Sussex

Abstract

Multiple sets of synthetic spectra of OB-binary stars are used to test the suitability of disentangling for deriving accurate spectroscopic orbits. Given a set of spectra with broad phase coverage and sufficient total integration time (almost independent of the number of spectra), it appears that disentangling yields accurate and reliable semi-amplitudes of the spectroscopic orbits (other parameters being fixed). Methods for estimating the uncertainties on the derived semi-amplitudes are investigated.