A&A 416, 669-676 (2004)
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361:20031732
H. Bozic1 - P. Harmanec2,3 - S. Yang4 - J. Ziznovský5 - J. R. Percy6 - D. Ruzdjak1 - D. Sudar1 - M. Slechta3 - P. Skoda3 - J. Krpata2 - C. Buil7
1 - Hvar Observatory, Faculty of Geodesy, Zagreb University,
10000 Zagreb, Croatia
2 -
Astronomical Institute of the Charles University,
V Holesovickách 2, 180 00 Praha 8, Czech Republic
3 -
Astronomical Institute, Academy of Sciences,
251 65 Ondrejov, Czech Republic
4 -
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Victoria,
PO Box 3055 STN CSC, Victoria, BC, V8W 3P6, Canada
5 -
Astronomical Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences,
059 60 Tatranská Lomnica, Slovak Republic
6 -
Erindale Campus and Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University
of Toronto, Mississauga, ON L5L IC6, Canada
7 -
Association des Utilisateurs de Détecteurs Électroniques (AUDE),
28 rue du Pic du Midi, 31130 Quint-Fonsegrives, France
Received 14 May 2003 / Accepted 6 November 2003
Abstract
Photometric and spectroscopic monitoring of the B star HD 6226 resulted in
the finding that this object is a new bright Be star with a clear positive
correlation between the brightness and emission-line strength.
The emission-line episodes are relatively short and seem to repeat
frequently which makes this star an ideal target for studying
the causes of the Be phenomenon.
The general character of the light variations, the low v sin i = 70 km s-1 and
the very pronounced line asymmetries of the He I 6678 line, seen both outside
and during emission-line episodes, are all attributes which make HD 6226
phenomenologically very similar to the well-known Be star CMa.
Radial velocities of the deepest parts of the metallic and He I 6678
absorption lines vary with a strict period of 2
61507 over the whole
time interval covered by the observations, the velocities of the broad
outer wings of the same lines varying in anti-phase and with a lower
amplitude. This periodicity could not be found in the radial-velocity
variations of the sharp core of H
.
There is some indication of
variability on a time scale of 24-29 days but our data are insufficient
to prove that conclusively.
A comparison of the line spectrum obtained outside emission episodes
with synthetic spectra, standard dereddening of
magnitudes
and Hipparcos parallax all agree with the conclusion that HD 6226 is a star with
the following basic properties:
= 17 000 K, log g = 3.0 [cgs], mass of 5
and radius of 11
.
The strong emission-line episodes may appear regularly,
in a cycle of 630 days but with different durations of individual
cycles. HD 6226 is probably one of the first B stars for which the Be nature
was predicted on the basis of the character of its light and colour changes.
Key words: stars: binaries: spectroscopic - stars: emission-line, Be - stars: individual: HD 6226
McCollum et al. (2000) discovered
a strong H
emission line on a spectrum taken on November 11, 2000.
However - to the best of our knowledge - a detailed account of their
finding has not yet been published.
Castelaz & McCollum (2003) presented another preliminary report
based on their spectroscopic observations secured between November 2002
and March 2003. The emission was not seen on spectra taken during
November and December 2002 but reappeared on spectra taken between
January 19 and March 15, 2003. They noted that this rules out the 481-d
period suspected by Bozic and Harmanec (1998) and claimed
that "H
emission changes generally do not follow the photometric
variations of Be stars.''
Table 1: Journal of photoelectric observations; observing stations are identified by their running numbers they have in the Ondrejov/Praha photometric archives.
Table 3: Journal of electronic spectrograms of HD 6226.
The following accurate Hvar all-sky
values for HD 189
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(1) |
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Figure 1: Light variation of HD 6226 in the V passband plotted vs. time. Frequent light brightenings are clearly seen. All individual observations are shown. |
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All observations were transformed to the standard Johnson system and corrections for differential extinction were applied. Hvar, Skalnaté Pleso and Stará Lesná observations were reduced with the HEC22 program (Harmanec et al. 1994; Harmanec & Horn 1998) via non-linear transformation formulæ (Hvar) or bilinear transformation (Skalnaté Pleso and Stará Lesná). AAVSO observations were reduced via a linear transformation. For convenience of future investigators, we publish all individual observations in Table 2.
Journal of all observations is given in Table 3 and some details about the instrumentation and initial reductions are given below:
All measurements were carried repeatedly (by JK, PH and HB),
to increase the accuracy of the results. In all cases, the zero point of
the RV scale was corrected through the use of reliable telluric lines,
as described in Horn et al. (1996). We can, therefore, assume that
all RVs from the red region have the same zero point and can be
combined directly.
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Figure 2:
The (U-B) vs. (B-V) diagram with all individual
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For the H
profiles, we also measured its equivalent width EW,
central intensity
and/or the peak intensities IV and IRof the V and R peaks of the double emission. For He I 6678, we measured
the equivalent width and central intensity.
These quantitative measurements are summarized in Table 4.
Figure 2 is colour-colour diagram and all individual observations
are shown. The object is reddened and the character
of the colour changes corresponds to a positive correlation between
the brightness and emission strength. The object moves from main sequence
towards supergiant sequence and back in the colour-colour diagram.
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Figure 3:
Light variation of HD 6226 in the V passband plotted vs. phase
of the 630
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Long-term variations of Be stars are known to be cyclic but usually
not strictly periodic. However - since Bozic and
Harmanec (1998) suspected the presence of a periodicity and since
the brightenings of HD 6226 occur quite often and could be related to possible
binary nature of the object, we carried out a period search in
the V-band observations down to 50 days. We
found that there is only one period of 630
3 for which all
the major brightenings fall into a similar narrow phase
interval - see the phase diagram in Fig. 3.
One can see, however, that each brightening is characterized by
a somewhat different strength and duration and that some of the milder
brightenings occur at phases other than the major ones. Only continuing
observations can help to decide whether there is indeed some regular
clock controlling the occurrence of major brightenings.
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Figure 4:
The 2003 emission-line episode of HD 6226:
Upper panel: V magnitude vs. time.
Bottom panel: Peak intensity (V+R)/2 of the H![]() |
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In Fig. 4 we compare the V magnitude and the strength of the H
emission observed during the 2003 episode in detail. In addition to
our spectra, secured on only four different nights, one can also use
qualitative information from spectra reported by
Castelaz & McCollum (2003)
. They observed H
absorption between JD 2 452 595 and ..651 and H
emission between
JD 2 452 659 and .. 713, in a good agreement with our findings.
We note that the observed sequence of events is
typical of the positive correlation between brightness and
emission strength, as defined by Harmanec (1983,2000) and
discussed semi-quantitatively for another Be star, V839 Her = 4 Her
by Koubský et al. (1997). Our interpretation is
the following: The initial formation of the envelope manifests itself as
a pseudophotosphere, a region above the stellar photosphere
which is optically thick in the continuum. Since we probably observe HD 6226
more pole-on than equator-on (considering its low v sin i - see below),
this pseudophotosphere acts to increase the observed radius
of the star which naturally leads to brightening of the object
and its apparent evolution from the main sequence towards the supergiant
sequence in the colour-colour diagram. As the envelope grows, it gradually
gets optically thin in the continuum but opaque in the Balmer lines
and this leads to the development of Balmer emission lines and
a gradual decrease of the brightness of the object to its undisturbed level.
Figure 4 indeed shows that the increase of
the strength of H
emission follows with some lag after
the brightness increase.
A representative selection of H
and He I 6678 line profiles
is displayed in Figs. 7 and 8.
It is seen that a central absorption reversal
developed gradually in the H
emission profile as the strength of the
emission grew. We tried to subtract one 1997 H
profile without emission
from the 2003 ones. We found that while for the profile
obtained at JD 2 452 658 this subtraction led
to a net emission profile without a central reversal, all consecutive
profiles have a central reversal even after the subtraction.
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Figure 5: A plot of the V magnitude vs. time for the period covered by the 1997 spectral observations. |
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Figure 6: A plot of the V magnitude vs. time for the period covered when the emission of HD 6226 was first observed on JD 2 451 860. |
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Figure 7:
A representative selection of the 1997 and 2003
H![]() |
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Figure 8: A representative selection of the 1997 and 2003 He I 6678 line profiles of HD 6226. Note the pronounced and variable line asymmetry. |
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No trace of emission was observed in any of 1997 spectra (HJDs from 2 450 653.98 to 2 450 713.05). Figure 5 is a detailed plot of V magnitude vs. time over the period of these spectroscopic observations. All the 1997 spectra were obtained during a time interval when the brightness of the star was in its normal low state, although another brightening occurred shortly after the last 1997 spectrogram was obtained.
Regrettably, we do not have photometric data close enough to the first, November 11, 2000 observation of the Balmer emission in the spectrum of HD 6226 by McCollum et al. (2000). Nevertheless - as one can see in Fig. 6 - there is at least partial evidence that this emission episode was also accompanied by a brightening of the object.
Using several period searching techniques, we therefore analyzed all
RV data as well as spectrophotometric quantities for the presence
of possible periodic changes over the range of periods from long ones
down to 0
3.
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Figure 9:
Radial-velocity variations of different measured
features plotted vs. phase of the 2
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Keeping the period from ephemeris (2) fixed, we derived similar fits
also for the broad wings of the line. The same periodicity was
found in the RVs of the deepest parts and wings of the mean RV of the Si II doublet and Ne I line. We also derived such a fit to the RV of the broad
outer wings of H
absorption, though its RV suffers from large
measuring errors and shows no very clear evidence of the 2
615 period.
These sinusoidal fits are summarized
in Table 4 and the corresponding phase diagrams are
plotted in Fig. 9.
The amplitude of the variations is larger for lines with a
smaller intrinsic width. The two most negative RVs
of metallic line cores come from Heros spectra which have about twice better
resolution than either Ondrejov Coudé or DAO spectra.
Such behaviour is typical of apparent RV variations due to velocity
fields in the stellar atmospheres or envelopes.
We therefore tentatively conclude that the 2
615 period is a signature
of such variations, and that it roughly measures the stellar rotation
since the horizontal amplitudes of velocity fields are usually small in
comparison to linear velocity of rotation.
The velocity measured on the wings of the emission line
does not follow the 2
615 period but can be reconciled with a longer
period of 2
719. The number of our measurements is very limited, however.
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Figure 10:
The Ondrejov He I 6678 line profile obtained on HJD 2 452 861.3761
(solid line) and a difference between this profile and a profile
obtained 0
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On the other hand, our recent Ondrejov spectra, obtained during the same night, do provide some evidence of moving sub-features travelling accross the He I 6678 line profile - see Fig. 10. This seems to support our previous conclusion that the object is a line-profile variable.
After several trials, we found that the whole optical spectrum is best fitted by a model spectrum with the following properties:
= 17000 K, log g = 3.0 [cgs] and v sin i = 70 km s-1.
Figure 11 shows that the fit of the model spectrum
to the observed one is very satisfactory. The only larger discrepancy
concerns the He I 6678 line but this line is known to be prone to NLTE effects.
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Figure 11:
A comparison of the 1997 Heros spectrogram of HD 6226 with
a synthetic spectrum for 17000 K and
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One can carry out several independent checks. First, the standard
dereddening of the
values characteristic for the non-emission
stage of the star
One can also use the dereddened V magnitude and the parallax observed
by the Hipparcos satellite (Perryman et al. 1997),
,
to estimate the probable radius of HD 6226
as 10.3 (6.1-34.3)
.
This can be compared to the radius
of R = 11.7
,
corresponding to
a star having
and a normal mass of 5.0
for its
= 17 000 K according to Harmanec's (1988) calibration
based on accurate masses and radii of detached binaries.
Assuming a radius of, say, 11 ,
and adopting
2
615 as a measure of the stellar rotational period, one arrives
at equatorial velocity of 213 km s-1 and
.
For the same
radius and a mass of 5
,
the break-up velocity at the equator
(adopting the Roche-model approximation) would be 240 km s-1 - a comparable
number, considering all uncertainties.
One can see that above estimates agree well within the limits of their accuracy. However, they could change significantly if the object was a binary with two components, each of them contributing non-negligibly to the total luminosity of the object in the optical passbands.
It is clear that the inclination under which we observe the star must be
low. This, of course, raises the question of the presence of a sharp
central absorption seen during the emission episode in the H
emission line. One possible interpretation is to assume that
the Be envelope is sufficiently spheroidal to produce absorption
effects even above the poles of the star. Another one would be
to assume that the narrow absorption comes from a secondary
in a putative binary system. It seems clear, however, that it
cannot originate in a stellar wind from polar regions of the star
since its RV blueshift with respect to the stellar photosphere - if any -
is smaller than 5 km s-1.
Clearly, HD 6226 is a very interesting Be star which deserves further intensive study.
Acknowledgements
We thank Drs. T. Rivinius, D. Baade and S. Stefl who kindly put their 1997 Heros spectrum of HD 6226 at our disposal, and the AAVSO and its photoelectric observers K. Luedeke and J. Wood for providing their observations. We acknowledge the use of the recent version of program FOTEL written by Dr. P. Hadrava. Research of P. Harmanec was supported from the research plan J13/98: 113200004 of Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports. He, P. Skoda and M. Slechta were also supported from the research plan AV 0Z1 003909 and project K2043105 of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. At final stages, this research was supported from the grant GA CR 205/2002/0788 of the Granting Agency of the Czech Republic. J. Ziznovský acknowledges support from the VEGA grant No. 2-3014/23.