2013A&A...551A..47L

Highest posterior density intervals (HPDIs) are derived for the true eccentricities ε of spectroscopic binaries with measured values e≃0. These yield upper limits when e is below the detection threshold e_th and seamlessly transform to upper and lower bounds when e>e_th. In the main text, HPDIs are computed with an informative eccentricity prior representing orbital decay due to tidal dissipation. In an appendix, the corresponding HPDIs are computed with a uniform prior and are the basis for a revised version of the Lucy-Sweeney test, with the previous outcome ε=0 now replaced by an upper limit ε_U. Sampling experiments with known prior confirm the validity of the HPDIs.