Accretion of chemically fractionated material on a wide binary with a blue straggler^*

¹ INAF – Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova, Vicolo dell' Osservatorio 5, 35122 Padova, Italy e-mail: silvano.desidera@oapd.inaf.it
² McDonald Observatory, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA
³ Observatoire de Geneve, 51 Ch. des Maillettes, 1290 Sauverny, Switzerland

Received: 31 July 2006
Accepted: 2 October 2006

Abstract

Context.The components of the wide binary HIP 64030 = HD 113984 show a large (about 0.25 dex) iron content difference (Desidera et al. 2006). The positions of the components on the color magnitude diagram suggest that the primary is a blue straggler.

Aims.We studied the abundance difference of several elements besides iron, and we searched for stellar and substellar companions around the components to unveil the origin of the observed iron difference.

Methods.A line-by-line differential abundance analysis for several elements was performed for iron, while suitable spectral synthesis was performed for C, N, and Li. High precision radial velocities obtained with the iodine cell were combined with available literature data.

Results.The analysis of additional elements shows that the abundance difference for the elements studied increases with increasing condensation temperature, suggesting that accretion of chemically fractionated material might have occurred in the system. Alteration of C and N likely due to CNO processing is also observed. We also show that the primary is a spectroscopic binary with a period of 445 days and moderate eccentricity. The minimum mass of the companion is .

Conclusions.Two scenarios were explored to explain the observed abundance pattern. In the first, all abundance anomalies arise on the blue straggler. If this is the case, the dust-gas separation may have been occurred in a circumbinary disk around the blue straggler and its expected white dwarf companion, as observed in several RV Tauri and post AGB binaries. In the second scenario, accretion of dust-rich material occurred on the secondary. This would also explain the anomalous carbon isotopic ratio of the secondary. Such a scenario requires that a substantial amount of mass lost by the central binary has been accreted by the wide component. Further studies to compare the two scenarios are proposed.