7 research outputs found
SDSS J160043.6+074802.9: a very rapid sdO pulsator
We report the serendipitous discovery of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey star,
SDSS J160043.6+074802.9 to be a very rapid pulsator. The variation is dominated
by a frequency near 8380 microHz (period = 119.33 s) with a large amplitude
(0.04 mag) and its first harmonic at 16760 microHz (59.66 s; 0.005 mag). In
between these frequencies, we find at least another 8 variations with periods
between 62 and 118 seconds and amplitudes between about 0.007 and 0.003 mag;
weaker oscillations might also be present. Preliminary spectrograms from the
performance verification phase of the Southern African Large Telescope indicate
that SDSS J160043.6+074802.9 is a spectroscopic binary consisting of an sdO
star and a late-type main-sequence companion. This makes it the first
unambiguous detection of such an sdO star to pulsate, and certainly the first
found to exhibit multi-frequency variations.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures (figure 4 at reduced resolution, original
available on request). Accepted for publication in MNRA