We aim to improve the orbital elements and determine the individual masses of
the components in the triple system TWA 5.
Five new relative astrometric positions in the H band were recorded with the
adaptive optics system at the Very Large Telescope (VLT). We combine them with
data from the literature and a measurement in the Ks band. We derive an
improved fit for the orbit of TWA 5Aa-b around each other. Furthermore, we use
the third component, TWA 5B, as an astrometric reference to determine the
motion of Aa and Ab around their center of mass and compute their mass ratio.
We find an orbital period of 6.03+/-0.01 years and a semi-major axis of
63.7+/-0.2 mas (3.2+/-0.1 AU). With the trigonometric distance of 50.1+/-1.8
pc, this yields a system mass of 0.9+/-0.1 Msun, where the error is dominated
by the error of the distance. The dynamical mass agrees with the system mass
predicted by a number of theoretical models if we assume that TWA5 is at the
young end of the age range of the TW Hydrae association.
We find a mass ratio of M_Ab / M_Aa = 1.3 +0.6/-0.4, where the less luminous
component Ab is more massive. This result is likely to be a consequence of the
large uncertainties due to the limited orbital coverage of the observations.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figures, accepted by Astronomy and Astrophysic
