Radial velocities of TYC 3010-1494-1

At the moderate resolving power of the MARVELS spectrograph and the spectrographs used for subsequent radial-velocity (RV) measurements (R{<~}30000), this particular stellar binary mimics a single-lined binary with an RV signal that would be induced by a brown dwarf companion (Msini~50M_Jup_) to a solar-type primary.

At least three properties of this system allow it to masquerade as a single star with a very-low-mass companion: its large eccentricity (e~0.8), its relatively long period (P~238days), and the approximately perpendicular orientation of the semi-major axis with respect to the line of sight ({omega}~189{deg}). As a result of these properties, for ~95% of the orbit the two sets of stellar spectral lines are completely blended, and the RV measurements based on centroiding on the apparently single-lined spectrum is very well fit by an orbit solution indicative of a brown dwarf companion on a more circular orbit (e~0.3).