| Issue |
A&A
Volume 511, February 2010
|
|
|---|---|---|
| Article Number | L7 | |
| Number of page(s) | 4 | |
| Section | Letters | |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/200913832 | |
| Published online | 10 March 2010 | |
Letter to the Editor
HR 7355 – another rapidly braking He-strong CP star?*
1
Department of Theoretical Physics and Astrophysics,
Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic e-mail: mikulas@physics.muni.cz
2
Observatory and Planetarium of J. Palisa, VŠB –
Technical University, Ostrava, Czech Republic
3
Center of Excellence in Information Systems, Tennessee
State University, Nashville, Tennessee, USA
4
Private Observatory, 61 Dick Burton Road, Plumstead,
Cape Town, South Africa
5
Institute for Astronomy of the University of Vienna,
Vienna, Austria
Received:
9
December
2009
Accepted:
4
February
2010
Context. Strong meridional mixing induced by rapid rotation is one reason why all hot main-sequence stars are not chemically peculiar. However, the finding that the He-strong CP star HR 7355 is a rapid rotator complicates this concept.
Aims. Our goal is to explain the observed behaviour of HR 7355 based on period analysis of all available photometry.
Methods. Over two years, we acquired 114 new BV observations of HR 7355 at observatories in Arizona, U.S.A and Cape Town, South Africa. We performed period analyses of the new observations along with new analyses of 732 archival measurements from the Hipparcos and ASAS projects.
Results. We find that
the light curves of HR 7355 in various filters are quite similar,
with amplitudes 0.035(4), 0.036(4), and 0.038(3) mag in B,
Hp, and V, respectively. The light curves are
double-peaked, with unevenly deep minima. We substantially refine
the rotational period to be P = 0
5214410(4), indicating that
HR 7355 is the most rapidly rotating CP star known. Our period
analyses reveal a possible lengthening of the rotational period with
= 2.4(8)
10-6 yr-1.
Conclusions. We conclude that the shape and amplitude of HR 7355 light curves are typical of magnetic He-strong CP stars, for which light variations are the result of photospheric spots on the surface of a rotating star. We hypothesise that the light variations are caused mainly by an uneven distribution of overabundant helium on the star's surface. We briefly describe and discuss the cause of the rapid rotational braking of the star.
Key words: stars: chemically peculiar / stars: variables: general / stars: individual: HR 7355 / stars: rotation
Photometric data are only available in electronic form at the CDS via anonymous ftp to cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr (130.79.128.5) or via http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/cgi-bin/qcat?J/A+A/511/L7
© ESO, 2010
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