The GAIA astrometric mission of ESA will be very efficient in discovering binary and multiple stars with any orbital period, from minutes to millions of years. The main parameters of the revised mission design are presented. Next we estimate the fraction of binary stars discovered by means of astrometry, photometry and on-board spectroscopy. Finally we summarize observations that confirm the ability to measure physical parameters like masses, radii and spectroscopic distance from GAIA data alone. GAIA will fly only in 2010, but the radial velocity experiment (RAVE) has started this year. We show that its spectroscopic observations have the capacity to discover a large fraction of so far unknown binary systems.

Two previous studies of the secondary mass function in spectroscopic binaries by Abt & Levy (1976) and by Duquennoy & Mayor (1991) are shown to be in good agreement if they are both plotted with the same abscissa scale. A new study of 271 main-sequence stars later than F6 V made with a radial-velocity accuracy of ±0.10 km s-1 yielded 10 new sets of orbital elements in addition to the 59 published ones. The resulting secondary mass function is nearly flat and shows that 2.2±1.5% of the primaries have low-mass (0.01–0.10 M⊙) companions. In contrast, the secondary mass function for visual binaries with separations >500 AU fits a van Rhijn function, as was shown previously by Abt and Levy.

We derive the period (P), primary mass (m1) and mass ratio (q) distributions of the local population of field binaries by studying a volume-limited sample of 371 spectroscopic binaries (SBs) in the solar neighbourhood d ≤ 100 pc and Mv ≤ 4. The sample was collated using the Batten catalogue, data of R.F. Griffin and the Hipparcos catalogue. The SB2s are used to calibrate a Monte-Carlo approach to the q distribution of SB1s, giving a total q distribution confirming a peak at q ≈ 1. Completenesses and parameter-specific biases are also assessed. A substantial number of systems with intermediate to long periods are found which may have significant consequences for the mass-distribution of WDs.

We present the first eccentricity-period diagram for binaries among nearby field M giants, where an observed frequency of at least 8% of spectroscopic binaries is found.

Two Coravel radial velocity surveys dedicated to F7-K field dwarfs and to open clusters are merged in order to investigate the statistical properties of binaries with periods up to 10 years. Thanks to the accurate trigonometric parallaxes provided by Hipparcos, an unbiased sample of spectroscopic binaries (SB) is selected. After correction for the uncertainties of the measurements, the following results are obtained: 1. The distribution of mass ratios exhibits a peak for equal-mass binaries (twins), which is higher for short-period binaries than for long-period binaries. 2. Apart from the twins, the distribution of mass ratios exhibits a broad peak from 0.2 to 0.6. 3. The orbital eccentricities of twins are slightly smaller than those of other binaries. 4. An excess of SB is observed with periods shorter than about 50 days in comparison with the Duquennoy and Mayor log-normal distribution of periods. These features suggest that close binary stars are generated by two different processes. A possible difference could come from the accretion onto the binary, for instance from a common envelope or from a circumbinary disk. Alternatively, twins could come from dynamic evolution of multiple systems. It is not clear whether the formation models are already sufficiently elaborated to reproduce our statistics.

New uvby photoelectric photometry has been acquired for the triple star DG Leo at two different observatories equipped with analogous instrumentation. A preliminary period analysis indicates the presence of at least 3 close δ Scuti frequencies (10-12 c/d, 3-6 mmag) and a slow variation. This slow variation fits quite well with half the orbital period of the spectroscopic binary; the noise level in the amplitude spectrum is only 3–4 mmag (after prewhitening).