Searching for Wide Binary Brown Dwarfs around Nearby Stars

We have started a program to search for Brown Dwarf (BD) companions to nearby stars (5 ≤ d ≤ 10 pc) on long period orbits (up to 2000 AU) using wide field optical/infrared imaging. Our goals in surveying a volume-limited sample of stars are: 1) to determine the binary fraction of widely separated BDs and help constrain the BD formation processes, 2) to search for very cold BDs, 3) to provide a better determination of the age and luminosity of a BD sample. Observations are currently conducted at three observatories, CFHT (3.6m), CTIO (4m) and Observatoire du mont Mégantic (1.6m) and should yield a sample of ~100 star systems to a detection limit of J ≈ 20.