137 research outputs found
Long-term photometry of three active red giants in close binary systems: V2253 Oph, IT Com and IS Vir
We present and analyze long-term optical photometric measurements of the
three active stars V2253 Oph, IT Com and IS Vir. All three systems are
single-lined spectroscopic binaries with an early K giant as primary component
but in different stages of orbital-rotational synchronization. Our photometry
is supplemented by 2MASS and WISE near-IR and mid-IR magnitudes and then used
to obtain more accurate effective temperatures and extinctions. For V2253 Oph
and IT Com, we found their spectral energy distributions consistent with pure
photospheric emission. For IS Vir, we detect a marginal mid-IR excess which
hints towards a dust disk. The orbital and rotational planes of IT Com appear
to be coplanar, contrary to previous findings in the literature. We apply a
multiple frequency analysis technique to determine photometric periods, and
possibly changes of periods, ranging from days to decades. New rotational
periods of 21.55+-0.03d, 65.1+-0.3d, and 23.50+-0.04d were determined for V2253
Oph, IT Com, and IS Vir, respectively. Splitting of these periods led to
tentative detections of differential surface rotations of delta P/P ~0.02 for
V2253 Oph and 0.07 for IT Com. Using a time-frequency technique based on
short-term Fourier transforms we present evidence of cyclic light variations of
length ~10yrs for V2253 Oph and 5-6yrs for IS Vir. A single flip-flop event has
been observed for IT Com of duration 2-3yrs. Its exchange of the dominant
active longitude had happened close to a time of periastron passage, suggesting
some response of the magnetic activity from the orbital dynamics. The 21.55-d
rotational modulation of V2253 Oph showed phase coherence also with the orbital
period, which is 15 times longer than the rotational period, thus also
indicating a tidal feedback with the stellar magnetic activity.Comment: 13 pages, 14 figures, accepted to A
Tidal and rotational effects in the perturbations of hierarchical triple stellar systems. II. Eccentric systems - the case of AS Camelopardalis
We study the perturbations of a relatively close third star on a tidally
distorted eccentric eclipsing binary. We consider both the observational
consequences of the variations of the orbital elements and the interactions of
the stellar rotation with the orbital revolution in the presence of
dissipation. We concentrate mainly on the effect of a hypothetical third
companion on both the real, and the observed apsidal motion period. We
investigate how the observed period derived mainly from some variants of the
O-C relates to the real apsidal motion period. We carried out both analytical
and numerical investigations and give the time variations of the orbital
elements of the binary both in the dynamical and the observational reference
frames. We give the direct analytical form of an eclipsing O-C affected
simultaneously by the mutual tidal forces and the gravitational interactions
with a tertiary. We also integrated numerically simultaneously the orbital and
rotational equations for the possible hierarchical triple stellar system AS
Camelopardalis. We find that there is a significant domain of the possible
hierarchical triple system configurations, where both the dynamical and the
observational effects tend to measure longer apsidal advance rate than is
expected theoretically. This happens when the mutual inclination of the close
and the wide orbits is large, and the orbital plane of the tertiary almost
coincides with the plane of the sky. We also obtain new numerical results on
the interaction of the orbital evolution and stellar rotation in such triplets.
The most important fact is that resonances might occur as the stellar
rotational rate varies during the dissipation-driven synchronization process...Comment: 33 pages, 12 figures (reduced quality!), accepted for publication for
Astronomy and Astrophysic
On the apsidal motion of BP Vulpeculae
BP Vulpeculae is a bright eclipsing binary system showing apsidal motion. It
was found in an earlier study that it shows retrograde apsidal motion which
contradicts theory. In this paper we present the first light curve of the
system and its light curve solution as well as seven new times of the minima
from the years 1959-1963. This way we could expanded the baseline of the
investigation to five decades. Based on this longer baseline we concluded that
the apsidal motion is prograde agreeing with the theoretical expectations and
its period is about 365 years and the determined internal structure constant is
close to the theoretically expected one.Comment: accepted for New Astronomy; two figure
The Anticorrelated Nature of the Primary and Secondary Eclipse Timing Variations for the Kepler Contact Binaries
We report on a study of eclipse timing variations in contact binary systems,
using long-cadence lightcurves in the Kepler archive. As a first step,
'observed minus calculated' (O-C) curves were produced for both the primary and
secondary eclipses of some 2000 Kepler binaries. We find ~390 short-period
binaries with O-C curves that exhibit (i) random-walk like variations or
quasi-periodicities, with typical amplitudes of +/- 200-300 seconds, and (ii)
anticorrelations between the primary and secondary eclipse timing variations.
We present a detailed analysis and results for 32 of these binaries with
orbital periods in the range of 0.35 +/- 0.05 days. The anticorrelations
observed in their O-C curves cannot be explained by a model involving mass
transfer, which among other things requires implausibly high rates of ~0.01
M_sun per year. We show that the anticorrelated behavior, the amplitude of the
O-C delays, and the overall random-walk like behavior can be explained by the
presence of a starspot that is continuously visible around the orbit and slowly
changes its longitude on timescales of weeks to months. The quasi-periods of
~50-200 days observed in the O-C curves suggest values for k, the coefficient
of the latitude dependence of the stellar differential rotation, of
~0.003-0.013.Comment: Published in The Astrophysical Journal, 2013, Vol. 774, p.81; 14
pages, 12 figures, and 2 table
The contact binary VW Cephei revisited: surface activity and period variation
Context. Despite the fact that VW Cephei is one of the well-studied contact
binaries in the literature, there is no fully consistent model available that
can explain every observed property of this system.
Aims. Our motivation is to obtain new spectra along with photometric
measurements, to analyze what kind of changes may have happened in the system
in the past two decades, and to propose new ideas for explaining them.
Methods. For the period analysis we determined 10 new times of minima from
our light curves, and constructed a new OC diagram of the system. Radial
velocities of the components were determined using the cross-correlation
technique. The light curves and radial velocities were modelled simultaneously
with the PHOEBE code. All observed spectra were compared to synthetic spectra
and equivalent widths of the H line were measured on their differences.
Results. We have re-determined the physical parameters of the system
according to our new light curve and spectral models. We confirm that the
primary component is more active than the secondary, and there is a correlation
between spottedness and the chromospheric activity. We propose that flip-flop
phenomenon occurring on the primary component could be a possible explanation
of the observed nature of the activity. To explain the period variation of VW
Cep, we test two previously suggested scenarios: presence of a fourth body in
the system, and the Applegate-mechanism caused by periodic magnetic activity.
We conclude that although none of these mechanisms can be ruled out entirely,
the available data suggest that mass transfer with a slowly decreasing rate
gives the most likely explanation for the period variation of VW Cep.Comment: 13 pages, 18 figures, 9 tables, accepted for publication in Astronomy
and Astrophysic
TIC 278825952: a triply eclipsing hierarchical triple system with the most intrinsically circular outer orbit
We report the discovery of a compact triply eclipsing triple star system in the southern continuous viewing zone of the TESS space telescope. TIC 278825952 is a previously unstudied, circular eclipsing binary with a period of 4.781 days with a tertiary component in a wider, circular orbit of 235.55 days period that was found from three sets of third-body eclipses and from light travel-time effect dominated eclipse timing variations. We performed a joint photodynamical analysis of the eclipse timing variation curves, photometric data, and the spectral energy distribution, coupled with the use of PARSEC stellar isochrones. We find that the inner binary consists of slightly evolved, near twin stars of masses of 1.12 and 1.09 M⊙ and radii of 1.40 and 1.31 R⊙. The third, less massive star has a mass of 0.75 M⊙ and radius of 0.70 R⊙. The low mutual inclination and eccentricities of the orbits show that the system is highly coplanar and surprisingly circular
HD181068 : A TRIPLY ECLIPSING SYSTEM WITH INTRINSICALLY VARIABLE RED GIANT COMPONENT
We present the analysis of HD 181068 which is one of the
first triply eclipsing triple system discovered. Using Kepler photometry, ground based spectroscopic and interferometric measurements, we determined the stellar and orbital parameters of the system. We show that the oscillations observed in the red giant component of the system are tidally forced oscillations, while one of the most surprising results is that it does not show solar-like oscillations
Long-term variation in distribution of sunspot groups
We studied the relation between the distribution of sunspot groups and the
Gleissberg cycle. As the magnetic field is related to the area of the sunspot
groups, we used area-weighted sunspot group data. On the one hand, we confirm
the previously reported long-term cyclic behaviour of the sum of the northern
and southern sunspot group mean latitudes, although we found a somewhat longer
period (P~104 years). We introduced the difference between the ensemble average
area of sunspot groups for the two hemispheres, which turns out to show similar
behaviour. We also investigated a further aspect of the Gleissberg cycle where
while in the 19th century the consecutive Schwabe cycles are sharply separated
from each other, one century later the cycles overlap each other more and more.Comment: 4 page
Triple-Star Candidates Among the Kepler Binaries
We present the results of a search through the photometric database of
eclipsing Kepler binaries (Prsa et al. 2011; Slawson et al. 2011) looking for
evidence of hierarchical triple star systems. The presence of a third star
orbiting the binary can be inferred from eclipse timing variations. We apply a
simple algorithm in an automated determination of the eclipse times for all
2157 binaries. The "calculated" eclipse times, based on a constant period
model, are subtracted from those observed. The resulting O-C (observed minus
calculated times) curves are then visually inspected for periodicities in order
to find triple-star candidates. After eliminating false positives due to the
beat frequency between the ~1/2-hour Kepler cadence and the binary period, 39
candidate triple systems were identified. The periodic O-C curves for these
candidates were then fit for contributions from both the classical Roemer delay
and so-called "physical" delay, in an attempt to extract a number of the system
parameters of the triple. We discuss the limitations of the information that
can be inferred from these O-C curves without further supplemental input, e.g.,
ground-based spectroscopy. Based on the limited range of orbital periods for
the triple star systems to which this search is sensitive, we can extrapolate
to estimate that at least 20% of all close binaries have tertiary companions.Comment: 19 pages, 13 figures, 3 tables; ApJ, 2013, 768, 33; corrected Fig. 7,
updated references, minor fixes to tex
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