Masses and angular momenta of contact binary stars

Results are presented on component masses and system angular momenta for over a hundred low-temperature contact binaries. It is found that the secondary components in close binary systems are very similar in mass. Our observational evidence strongly supports the argument that the evolutionary process goes from near-contact binaries to A-type contact binaries, without any need of mass loss from the system. Furthermore, the evolutionary direction of A-type into W-type systems with a simultaneous mass and angular momentum loss is also discussed. The opposite direction of evolution seems to be unlikely, since it requires an increase of the total mass and the angular momentum of the system.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, accepted in MNRA

YY CMi: contact or near contact system?

New V photoelectric observations of the eclipsing system YY CMi, obtained at La Silla, Chile, and Merate Observatory, Italy, are presented. New times of minima and ephemeris based on our observations are also given. The V light curve was analysed by using the WD code to derive the geometrical and physical parameters of the system. Since no spectroscopic mass ratio is available, the q-search method was applied to yield the preliminary range of the mass ratio in order to search for the final solution. First the unspotted solution was carried out by using the unperturbed parts of the light curve and applying the DC program of the WD code. The solution was performed by assuming contact (mode 3) and semi-detached (mode 4) configuration, since no classification of the system is possible from the shape of the light curve. The solution in mode 4 does not lead to an acceptable model, since the secondary was found to be slightly overcontact. Therefore the contact solution was finally adopted. Moreover the light curve peculiarities (Max II fainter than Max I and excess of light around the phase 0.32) were explained by assuming a cool and a hot spot on the surface of the secondary (cooler) component. The degree of contact is very small (f about 3%) and the thermal contactis poor (T1-T2) about 650 K. These results together with the high photometric mass ratio q about 0.89 indicate that YY CMi is very probably a system at the beginning or the end of the contact phase.Comment: 7 pages, 7 ps figures. Accepted for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Supplement Serie

The problem of the high mass of the hot component in the recurrent nova T Coronae Borealis solved after 38 years

In this paper, we present long-term spectroscopic observations of the recurrent nova (RN) T CrB obtained between the years 1985 and 1996 using 1.02 m and 2.34 m telescopes of the Vainu Bappu Observatory in India and the long-term photoelectric photometry of the object obtained mainly at the Skalnaté Pleso Observatory and at the Hlohovec Observatory in Slovakia. On the basis of our results, we have returned to the re-analysis of the old radial-velocity measurements published by Kraft (1958). The results obtained solve unambiguously the problem of the apparently too high mass of the hot component of T CrB, unacceptable if it has to be a white dwarf (WD), as several independent lines of evidence suggest

CoBiToM Project -- II: Evolution of contact binary systems close to the orbital period cut-off

Ultra-short orbital period contact binaries (Porb < 0.26 d) host some of the smallest and least massive stars. These systems are faint and rare, and it is believed that they have reached a contact configuration after several Gyrs of evolution via angular momentum loss, mass transfer and mass loss through stellar wind processes. This study is conducted in the frame of Contact Binaries Towards Merging (CoBiToM) Project and presents the results from light curve and orbital analysis of 30 ultra-short orbital period contact binaries, with the aim to investigate the possibility of them being red nova progenitors, eventually producing merger events. Approximately half of the systems exhibit orbital period modulations, as a result of mass transfer or mass loss processes. Although they are in contact, their fill-out factor is low (less than 30 per cent), while their mass ratio is larger than the one in longer period contact binaries. The present study investigates the orbital stability of these systems and examines their physical and orbital parameters in comparison to those of the entire sample of known and well-studied contact binaries, based on combined spectroscopic and photometric analysis. It is found that ultra-short orbital period contact binaries have very stable orbits, while very often additional components are gravitationally bound in wide orbits around the central binary system. We confirmed that the evolution of such systems is very slow, which explains why the components of ultra-short orbital period systems are still Main Sequence stars after several Gyrs of evolution

Resolving the pulsations of the subdwarf B star KPD 2109+4401

We present the results of extensive time series photometry of the pulsating subdwarf B star KPD 2109+4401. Our data set consists of 29 data runs with a total length of 182.6 hours over 31 days, collected at five observatories in 2004. These data are comprised of high signal-to-noise observations acquired with larger telescopes and wider time coverage observations obtained with smaller telescopes. They are sufficient to resolve the pulsation structure to 0.4 $\mu$Hz and are the most extensive data set for this star to date. With these data, we identify eight pulsation frequencies extending from 4701 to 5481 $\mu$Hz, corresponding to periods of 182 to 213 s. The pulsation frequencies and their amplitudes are examined over several time-scales with some frequencies showing amplitude variability.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, 5 tables; Accepted for publication in MNRA

Notes on Tachyon Effective Actions and Veneziano Amplitudes

In a previous paper (hep-th/0304045) it has been argued that tachyonic Dirac-Born-Infeld (DBI) actions can be obtained from open string theory in a limit, which generalizes the usual massless DBI limit. In the present note we review this construction focusing on a key property of the proposed tachyon effective actions: how they reproduce appropriate Veneziano amplitudes in a suitably defined kinematical region. Possible extensions and interesting open problems are briefly discussed.Comment: harvmac, 31 pages, 15 figures; v2 minor text modification

The Topological Cigar Observables

We study the topologically twisted cigar, namely the SL(2,R)/U(1) superconformal field theory at arbitrary level, and find the BRST cohomology of the topologically twisted N=2 theory. We find a one to one correspondence between the spectrum of the twisted coset and singular vectors in the Wakimoto modules constructed over the SL(2,R) current algebra. The topological cigar cohomology is the crucial ingredient in calculating the closed string spectrum of topological strings on non-compact Gepner models.Comment: 28 page

Realization of Brane Descent Relations in Effective Theories

We examine Sen's descent relations among (non-)BPS D-branes by using low energy effective field theories of DpDpbar system. We find that the fluctuation around the kink solution reproduces the low energy matter content on a non-BPS D(p-1)-brane. The effective action for these fluctuation modes turns out to be a generalization of Minahan-Zwiebach model. In addition, it is shown that the fluctuations around the vortex solution consist of massless fields on a BPS D(p-2)-brane and they are subject to Dirac-Born-Infeld action. We find the universality that the above results do not refer to particular forms of the effective action.Comment: 24 pages, LaTeX, 1 eps figure; v2:minor correction

Substitutional effects of in by Cu in CeIn2

We have investigated the evolution of the magnetic properties on the Ce(In1'xCux)2 (0 < x ≤ 0.3) series of alloys. The orthorhombic structure of the CeIn2 alloy (Imma) changes into the hexagonal AlB2-type (P6/mmm) for x = 0.05 and, then, into the hexagonal CaIn2-type (P63/mmm) for higher Cu concentrations, up to x = 0.3. The dc (ac) magnetic susceptibility shows an abrupt decrease of the magnetic transition temperature from 22 K to 5.4 K (x = 0.05). The results indicate the influence of the crystallographic type of structure and disorder effects on the magnetic behavior along the series. © Owned by the authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2014