  The multiplicities of stars, and some other properties, were collected
recently by Eggleton & Tokovinin, for the set of 4559 stars with Hipparcos
magnitude brighter than 6.0 (4558 excluding the Sun). In this paper I give a
numerical recipe for constructing, by a Monte Carlo technique, a theoretical
ensemble of multiple stars that resembles the observed sample. Only
multiplicities up to 8 are allowed; the observed set contains only
multiplicities up to 7. In addition, recipes are suggested for dealing with the
selection effects and observational uncertainties that attend the determination
of multiplicity. These recipes imply, for example, that to achieve the observed
average multiplicity of 1.53, it would be necessary to suppose that the real
population has an average multiplicity slightly over 2.0.
  This numerical model may be useful for (a) comparison with the results of
star and star cluster formation theory, (b) population synthesis that does not
ignore multiplicity above 2, and (c) initial conditions for dynamical cluster
simulations.

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics