Star Formation Environments and the Distribution of Binary Separations

We have carried out K-band speckle observations of a sample of 114 X-ray selected weak-line TTauri stars in the nearby Scorpius-Centaurus OB association. We find that for binary TTauri stars closely associated to the early type stars in Upper Scorpius, the youngest subgroup of the OB association, the peak in the distribution of binary separations is at 90 A.U. For binary TTauri stars located in the direction of an older subgroup, but not closely associated to early type stars, the peak in the distribution is at 215 A.U. A Kolmogorov-Smirnov test indicates that the two binary populations do not result from the same distribution at a significance level of 98%. Apparently, the same physical conditions which facilitate the formation of massive stars also facilitate the formation of closer binaries among low-mass stars, whereas physical conditions unfavorable for the formation of massive stars lead to the formation of wider binaries among low-mass stars. The outcome of the binary formation process might be related to the internal turbulence and the angular momentum of molecular cloud cores, magnetic field, the initial temperature within a cloud, or- most likely- a