Bibcode
Baran, A. S.; Østensen, R. H.; Telting, J. H.; Vos, J.; Kilkenny, D.; Vučković, M.; Reed, M. D.; Silvotti, R.; Jeffery, C. S.; Parsons, S. G.; Dhillon, V. S.; Marsh, T. R.
Bibliographical reference
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 481, Issue 2, p.2721-2735
Advertised on:
12
2018
Citations
20
Refereed citations
18
Description
We analysed recent K2 data of the short-period eclipsing binary system
HW Vir, which consists of a hot subdwarf-B type primary with an M-dwarf
companion. We determined the mid-times of eclipses, calculated O-C
diagrams, and an average shift of the secondary minimum. Our results
show that the orbital period is stable within the errors over the course
of the 70 days of observations. Interestingly, the offset from
mid-orbital phase between the primary and the secondary eclipses is
found to be 1.62 s. If the shift is explained solely by light-travel
time, the mass of the sdB primary must be 0.26 M⊙, which
is too low for the star to be core-helium burning. However, we argue
that this result is unlikely to be correct and that a number of effects
caused by the relative sizes of the stars conspire to reduce the
effective light-travel time measurement. After removing the flux
variation caused by the orbit, we calculated the amplitude spectrum to
search for pulsations. The spectrum clearly shows periodic signal from
close to the orbital frequency up to 4600 µHz, with the majority
of peaks found below 2600 µHz. The amplitudes are below 0.1
part-per-thousand, too low to be detected with ground-based photometry.
Thus, the high-precision data from the Kepler spacecraft has revealed
that the primary of the HW Vir system is a pulsating sdBV star. We argue
that the pulsation spectrum of the primary in HW Vir differs from that
in other sdB stars due to its relatively fast rotation that is (nearly)
phase-locked with the orbit.
Related projects
Binary Stars
The study of binary stars is essential to stellar astrophysics. A large number of stars form and evolve within binary systems. Therefore, their study is fundamental to understand stellar and galactic evolution. Particularly relevant is that binary systems are still the best source of precise stellar mass and radius measurements. Research lines
Pablo
Rodríguez Gil