Issue |
A&A
Volume 514, May 2010
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|
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Article Number | A36 | |
Number of page(s) | 10 | |
Section | Stellar structure and evolution | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/200913602 | |
Published online | 07 May 2010 |
TYC 2675-663-1: a newly discovered W UMa system in an active state
M. D. Caballero-García1 - G. Torres2 - I. Ribas3 - D. Rísquez4 - B. Montesinos5 - J. M. Mas-Hesse5 - A. Domingo5
1 - University of Cambridge, Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge CB3 0HA, UK
2 - Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden St., Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
3 - IEEC (Institut d'Estudis Espacials de Catalunya), Edif. Nexus-104, Gran Capità 2-4, 08034 Barcelona, Spain
4 - Leiden Observatory, PO Box 9513, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands
5 - CAB-LAEX (CSIC-INTA), ESAC Campus, PO Box 78, 28691 Villanueva de la Cañada, Madrid, Spain
Received 4 November 2009 / Accepted 27 January 2010
Abstract
Aims. The recently discovered eclipsing binary system
TYC 2675-663-1 is an X-ray source and shows properties in the
optical that are similar to the W UMa systems, but are somewhat
unusual compared to what is seen in other contact binary systems. The
goal of this work is to characterize its properties and investigate its
nature by means of detailed photometric and spectroscopic observations.
Methods. We have performed extensive V-band photometric
measurements with the INTEGRAL satellite along with ground-based
multi-band photometric observations, as well as high-resolution
spectroscopic monitoring, from which we have measured the radial
velocities of the components. These data have been analyzed to
determine the stellar properties, including the absolute masses and
radii. Additional low-resolution spectroscopy was obtained to
investigate spectral features.
Results. From the measured eclipse timings we determine an orbital period for the binary of
days.
The light-curve and spectroscopic analyses reveal the observations to
be well represented by a model of an overcontact system composed of
main-sequence F5 and G7 stars (temperature difference of nearly
1000 K), with the possible presence of a third star.
Low-resolution optical spectroscopy reveals a complex H
emission and other features that are not yet understood. The unusually high mass ratio of
places it in the rare ``H'' (high mass ratio) subclass of the
W UMa systems, which are presumably on their way to coalescence.
Key words: binaries: close - stars: fundamental parameters - X-rays: stars
1 Introduction
The star TYC 2675-663-1 (Tycho-2 catalog designation; Høg et al. 2000), with coordinates
,
(J2000),
was observed during 2002-2005 in the Johnson V filter with the
Optical Monitoring Camera (OMC) on board the INTEGRAL satellite
(Mas-Hesse et al. 2003), as a part of a serendipitous program to monitor optical counterparts
of ROSAT sources as potential variable objects. By cross-correlating
the list of variable sources detected with the OMC during the first
few months of operation with the ROSAT catalogs, five were found
that were potential optical counterparts of X-ray sources
(i.e., which were inside the ROSAT 3
position error radius;
Caballero-García et al. 2006; Caballero 2004). Three of them showed optical
variability with modulations characteristic of binary systems
(periodic variations, with regular periods and amplitudes larger than
0.1 mag). TYC 2675-663-1 showed the most striking variability
pattern, with very irregular and variable behavior.
The source, which has received the designation IOMC 2675000078 in the
OMC Input Catalog (Domingo et al. 2003) displays a color index of
(Høg et al. 2000), corresponding roughly to spectral
type G and shows variability typical of a close eclipsing binary
system. Little further information is available for this star, aside
from entries in various astrometric catalogs, so we undertook
photometric and spectroscopic observations in order to ascertain the
nature of the object and identify the origin of its X-ray emission.
We present a detailed study of TYC 2675-663-1. The
photometric and spectroscopic observations are presented in
Sect. 2, with a description of the data reduction
procedures. Section 3 contains the analysis of these
observations, including the determination of the ephemeris, the
stellar parameters and distance to the system and a discussion of the
peculiar H
emission we detected. Finally, in
Sect. 4 we discuss the results and the nature of the
system.
2 Observations and data reduction
2.1 Photometry
2.1.1 INTEGRAL/OMC photometry
The Optical Monitoring Camera (OMC) is a 50 mm aperture refractor
telescope, co-aligned with the high-energy instruments on board the
ESA INTEGRAL gamma-ray observatory (Mas-Hesse et al. 2003). The OMC
provides continuous monitoring of up to 100 sources in the Johnson V band over its
field of view. Telemetry
constraints do not permit downloading of the entire OMC image. For
this reason, windows were selected around the proposed
X-ray/
-ray targets as well as other targets of interest in the
same field of view. The position of these windows is computed
automatically, based on the sources compiled in the OMC Input
Catalog (Domingo et al. 2003), which contains around 500 000 targets
selected for being potentially variable in the optical. Only
sub-windows of the CCD containing those objects, with a size of
pixels (
), are transmitted to the
ground. TYC 2675-663-1 is located at only 14
from the ROSAT
source 1RXS J200912.0+323344 (contained in the ROSAT All-Sky
Survey Bright Source Catalog, Voges et al. (1999), with a catalog
1
position error of 8
)
and this allowed us to monitor
it as a potential optical counterpart.
At each INTEGRAL pointing the OMC collects a set of images with
several different integration times, typically in the range of 10 s
to 200 s (currently 10, 50 and 200 s), for the purpose of optimizing
the dynamic range and also to minimize noise and cosmic-ray
effects. For the analysis of TYC 2675-663-1 we used only the
images with exposures of 100 s and 200 s to secure an
adequate signal-to-noise ratio for the observations. The brightness
measurements used here were obtained with the Off-line Scientific
Analysis software. We used a photometric aperture
of
pixels, since contamination by nearby sources was not
significant (see Fig. 1). The complete folded light curve
is shown in Fig. 2.
![]() |
Figure 1: Field of view of the INTEGRAL/OMC target TYC 2675-663-1 (red point) and the ROSAT source 1RXS J200912.0+323344 (blue circle) at its nominal catalog position. |
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Table 1: Log of the observations used in this work.
![]() |
Figure 2:
Complete INTEGRAL/OMC light curve folded with the
period of
|
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2.1.2 Photometry from the Centro de Astrobiología (CAB) 0.5 m telescope
Ground-based photometric observations were collected with the 0.5 m
Giordano Bruno robotic telescope of the Centro de Astrobiología
(hereafter CAB), located at Calar Alto, Spain. This telescope is
equipped with a Finger Lakes Instrumentation IMG1024S
back-illuminated CCD and Johnson B and V filters. The camera has an image scale of 0.97 arcsec pixel-1,
which results in a field of view of
.
The
exposure times were 30 s and 20 s for the B and V filters,
respectively. All images were corrected for bias current and flat
field. We derived differential photometry with respect to three
comparison stars in the V filter (USNO B1 1224-0557970,
1224-0558767 and 1223-0560307) and an additional fourth comparison
star in B (USNO B1 1224-0558836). This allowed us to obtain
differential photometry for the source with errors less than
0.02 mag for both B and V.
Table 2:
Measured times of mid-eclipse for TYC 2675-663-1, listed with their errors (), cycle number (E) and O -C residuals from the adopted ephemeris.
Table 3: Radial velocities obtained for the primary (1) and the secondary components (2).
Table 4: Spectroscopic orbital parameters of TYC 2675-663-1.
2.1.3 Photometry from the Observatorio Astronómico Nacional (OAN) 1.52 m telescope
In order to obtain better photometric precision we carried out
additional observations with the 1.52 m telescope at the Observatorio
Astronómico Nacional, also located at Calar Alto (hereafter
OAN). This telescope was equipped with a Photometrics Series 200
back-illuminated CCD and Johnson B, V and I filters. The
camera has a scale of 0.4 arcsec pixel-1, with a field of view
of
.
The exposure times were 90, 60 and
30 s for the B, V and I filters, respectively. We applied
standard bias and flat field corrections. Differential photometry was
derived with respect to three comparison stars, selected from objects
in the field with B -V indices similar to the target. These stars
were USNO-B1 1225-0549546, 1225-0549756 and 1225-0549576, with
magnitudes of
B = 14.1, 15.5, 19.3,
V = 13.45, 14.65, 18.0 and
I
= 12.7, 13.7, 16.8, respectively. We used a photometric aperture radius
of 7'' for the target. The closest star to the target is located at
11'' (USNO B1 1225-0549559) and is fainter, thus its contribution to the
flux of the target is expected to be negligible.
2.2 Spectroscopy
2.2.1 High-resolution spectroscopy
TYC 2675-663-1 was observed for this project with the CfA Digital
Speedometer (Latham 1992) on the 1.5 m Tillinghast reflector at
the Fred L. Whipple Observatory on Mount Hopkins, Arizona (USA). This
echelle spectrograph coupled with its intensified photon-counting
Reticon detector delivers a single echelle order 45 Å wide centered
at a wavelength near 5187 Å and a resolving power of
.
The main features in this spectral window are the lines of
the Mg I b triplet. A total of 18 spectra were gathered between 23 Sep.
2004 and 5 Nov. 2006, with signal-to-noise ratios ranging from 14 to 30 per resolution element of 8.5 km s-1. ThAr exposures were taken
before and after each stellar exposure for wavelength calibration. The
velocity zero-point was monitored by means of sky exposures taken at
dusk and dawn.
2.2.2 Low-resolution spectroscopy
For a more detailed spectral coverage and to better study the spectral
properties of the object, a three-hour sequence of observations of
TYC 2675-663-1 was gathered also with the 3.5 m telescope at Calar
Alto with the double-beam spectrograph TWIN, on 25 Jul. 2007 from
22:02:06 (UTC) to 26 Jul. 01:02:24 (UTC). The wavelength coverage is
4400 Å to 5500 Å and
6000 Å to 7100 Å for the blue and red channels, respectively. The spectral
resolution of these observations is 0.54 Å pix-1, or
25 and 32 km s-1 in the blue and red channels,
respectively. The exposure time for each spectrum was 600 s
(resolution of 50 phase bins per orbital cycle). The median seeing was
about 2
.
Dome flat fields and bias images were taken at the
beginning of the night and comparison HeAr lamp spectra were taken
regularly for wavelength calibration.
3 Data analysis
3.1 Ephemeris
An initial value of the period of TYC 2675-663-1 was derived with a
method based on the Phase Dispersion Minimization algorithm of
Stellingwerf (1978). In order to refine this period, we determined
individual times of minimum from all our photometry data
(INTEGRAL/OMC, CAB 0.5 m and OAN 1.52 m) by fitting each eclipse
with a fourth degree polynomial. A total of 59 timings were obtained
(21 primary eclipses and 38 secondary eclipses), which are listed in
Table 2. These were then used to establish the
final period and reference epoch by solving for a linear ephemeris
using standard weighted least-squares techniques. Primary and
secondary minima were adjusted simultaneously and the orbit was
assumed to be circular. Given the asymmetry of the eclipses, realistic
uncertainties for the individual timings are a bit difficult to
determine. Instead, we assigned reasonable initial uncertainties by
telescope and then adjusted them by iterations so as to achieve
reduced
values near unity separately for the minima from each
data set. In this way we established realistic timing errors of
0.011 days, 0.012 days and 0.006 days for the INTEGRAL/OMC
and the 0.5 m
and 1.52 m telescopes, respectively. The resulting period and
epoch
are given by
P | = | ![]() |
(1) |
T0 | = | ![]() |
(2) |
where the reference epoch T0 was chosen to be close to the mean value of all the timings. We detected no sign of period changes over the 3.7-year interval and we adopt this ephemeris for the remainder of the paper.
3.2 Radial velocities and spectroscopic orbit
Radial velocities from our high-resolution spectra were determined with the two-dimensional cross-correlation algorithm TODCOR (Zucker & Mazeh 1994), with templates for each star selected from a library of synthetic spectra based on Kurucz (1992) model atmospheres. Template parameters (effective temperature, surface gravity, rotational velocity) were chosen to match the properties determined for the components in the following sections and solar metallicity was assumed throughout. Although the typical precision for the radial velocities of single sharp-lined stars with this instrumentation is about 0.5 km s-1, in this case the performance is significantly degraded because of the very large broadening of the spectral lines (which we attribute to rotation) coupled with the narrow wavelength range (single echelle order) and the double-lined nature of the object, which combined introduce considerable line blending. We estimated individual errors around 25 km s-1 for our measurements of the velocities of the primary and secondary components, which are however much smaller than the large variations we detected. These measurements are listed in Table 3. A circular Keplerian orbit was fit to these velocities, holding the period and epoch of primary eclipse fixed at the values determined earlier. The fit does not include proximity effects, given that the observations were obtained mostly at the quadratures where those effects are expected to be small (especially when compared to the observational errors). We adopted these elements to compute the absolute dimensions of the components. The resulting orbital parameters are given in Table 4 and the observations along with our best fit are depicted in Fig. 3.
3.3 Light curve fitting
In order to characterize the system and determine its physical
properties, we analyzed the light curves, taking into account the
information obtained from the spectroscopic solution just described.
Modelling of the photometry was performed with the PHOEBE package
(Prsa & Zwitter 2005) (version 29c), based on the Wilson-Devinney model
(Wilson & Devinney 1971). The main adjustable parameters in this model are
typically the inclination of the orbit (i), the
(pseudo-)potentials (,
), the luminosity of
the primary (L1) in each passband, the temperature of the secondary
(
)
and a phase shift. The light curves alone do not
provide any constraint on the absolute temperatures, but only on the
temperature ratio through the depth of the eclipses. Therefore,
the primary value
was held fixed. We estimated the
temperature of the primary star from the combined (V-K)color
and estimates of the magnitude difference between
the components derived from the light curves in an iterative way. The
result is
K, where the error is a
conservative estimate based on the scatter of values found from the
color in the iterative process of fitting the OAN light curves.
Limb-darkening coefficients were interpolated from the tables by
van Hamme (1993) using the square-root law. The gravity brightening
exponents (0.3 for both stars) and bolometric albedos (0.5) were fixed
at the values appropriate for stars with convective envelopes
(Lucy 1968). The mass ratio q and projected semimajor axis
were adopted from the spectroscopy. Because of the higher
quality of the BVI photometry from the 1.52 m OAN compared to that
from the 0.5 m CAB and the relatively short time span of the OAN
observations that makes them less vulnerable than the INTEGRAL/OMC
photometry to variability in the light curve, as described below, we
used only the OAN data in the following to determine the light curve
parameters. The three passbands were fitted simultaneously. The
INTEGRAL/OMC measurements were used as a consistency check.
It is obvious from the light curves (Fig. 4) that
the shape of the modulation changes continuously with phase, as in the
classical W UMa systems, with no clear beginning or ending of the
eclipses. This strongly suggests significant deformation of the
components and perhaps some degree of contact. Consequently, we
performed fits in both the semidetached mode (mode 4 in the
Wilson-Devinney nomenclature, with the primary filling its Roche
lobe) and also in the overcontact mode (mode 3), which is appropriate
for W UMa-type systems and overcontact systems that are not in thermal
contact. In the former case the potential of the primary was set to the
value of its Roche lobe potential for the adopted mass ratio (
):
. In the
overcontact mode the potentials were constrained to be the same, but we
did not force thermal contact, in other words, the surface
brightness of the two stars can be different even though they might be
in geometrical contact.
Initial solutions indicated a secondary temperature
in
the range of 5100-5700 K, but also gave rather low values of the
inclination angle (
57 deg) as a result of the relatively
shallow eclipses, leading to absolute masses of
and
.
Such large masses,
which are typical of late A- and mid F-type stars, respectively, would
imply temperatures that are considerably higher than we estimate based
on the colors (see above). Experiments in which we included third light
(
)
in our solutions revealed that it is statistically
different from zero (>
), providing a plausible explanation.
We obtained
values of 2-3% in B, 3-4% in V and 4-5% in I,
which suggests a red object contaminating the photometry. These
solutions yielded considerably higher inclinations, as expected, by
about 5-9
.
We did not see any clear evidence of a third star
in our CfA or TWIN spectra, although the spectroscopic material is
inadequate to detect such faint signatures, so it does not rule
them out. Below we chose to include third light in
our light curve modelling, on the basis that it is statistically
significant and provides for a more consistent overall solution.
![]() |
Figure 3:
CfA radial velocity measurements of TYC 2675-663-1
along with our best-fit model, folded with the period
|
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There are abundant signs of chromospheric activity in TYC 2675-663-1,
manifested in the form of an occasional O'Connell effect, irregular
shapes of the minima and occasional flares (see Fig. 4).
There is also significant variability in the
shape of the light curves, on typical timescales of a few weeks. The
O'Connell effect is apparent in the different light levels at the
quadratures (,
mag) and its reality
is demonstrated by the fact that it is seen in the light curves from
the 0.5 m CAB telescope (not shown) during one of the same time
intervals covered by the INTEGRAL/OMC photometry (Fig. 4),
thus ruling out instrumental errors. This
strongly suggests spottedness in one or both stars, which must be
considered in order to avoid biases in the geometric elements. PHOEBE
allows the spot effects to be modelled by assuming one or more
uniform-temperature circular features parametrized by four additional
adjustable variables: the longitude, colatitude, angular size and
temperature contrast factor (
). However,
because of well-known degeneracies in fitting for spot parameters from
light curves (see, e.g., Eker 1999,1996) and the poor
quality of our observations, it is impossible to discern precisely
and unambiguously where the spots are in this system. For this work we
arbitrarily chose to place a single spot on the secondary star,
and we chose its location to be near the pole (colatitude
), on the grounds that similar locations are often seen in
other active and rapidly-rotating stars studied, e.g., with Doppler
imaging techniques (see, e.g. Strassmeier 2009 and references
therein). We also fixed the temperature contrast factor
to
,
a value similar to that used in
other studies. Experiments with a spot location near the equator
produced fits of about the same quality and also gave similar values
for all geometric and radiative quantities, within the errors. The
fits converged to a large spot covering
20% of the surface of
the secondary star.
Solutions with third light and spots using the OAN photometry were carried out both in the semi-detached mode and in the overcontact mode. The fits consistently indicated contact between the components and a slight preference for the overcontact configuration, but gave otherwise very similar results for all parameters, the differences being well within the errors. As seen in Table 5 the potentials of the two components in the semi-detached solution appear nearly identical (within the errors) and are equal to those from the overcontact solution. This agrees with the definition of the overcontact mode, in which the components have the same potentials. Therefore we adopted in the following the overcontact results. These solutions are presented in Table 5 and are shown in Fig. 5 together with the OAN photometry. The values of the parameters correspond to the results from simultaneously fitting the B, V and I light curves and the errors represent the dispersion of the solution with respect those from fits of the monochromatic light curves. A graphical representation of the configuration of the system and the location of the spot is shown in Fig. 6.
As a consistency check, we produced an additional fit with the INTEGRAL/OMC data in the adopted overcontact mode. However, because of the longer time coverage of these data compared to the OAN light curves and the significant spot variability on relatively short timescales, we did not consider spots in this solution (i.e., this is not an optimized fit and not our adopted fit). For the purpose of comparison, we fitted the same spotless model to the OAN light curves, and the results are listed in Table 6. There is very good agreement between the two data sets despite the simplified modelling. This solution is over-plotted with the INTEGRAL/OMC data in Fig. 4. A comparison for the OAN data between the spotted model in Table 5 and the unspotted model in Table 6 shows that the differences are rather small and that thus the absolute dimensions of TYC 2675-663-1 are unlikely to be much affected by the uncertainties in the spot modelling.
![]() |
Figure 4: INTEGRAL/OMC light curve of TYC 2675-663-1 in the Johnson V band, folded with the adopted ephemeris. Separate time intervals are shown to illustrate the changes in shape due to activity ( from upper-left to lower-right). The superimposed curves (red) represent a fit without accounting for spots (see text), shown here only for reference. |
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Table 5: Light curve solutions based on the OAN photometry, for an overcontact and semi-detached configuration.
![]() |
Figure 5: Light curves of TYC 2675-663-1 obtained with the OAN telescope in the V, B and I bands ( top to bottom), folded according to the adopted ephemeris. This photometry is strictly differential (magnitudes shown have an arbitrary zero point). The curves represent our best-fit solution for an overcontact configuration, including the effect of spots. |
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![]() |
Figure 6: Configuration of the system at different phases, showing the location of the spot on the secondary. From top to bottom, the phases are approximately 0.00, 0.25 and 0.75. The size and separation of the stars are rendered to scale. |
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Table 6: Light curve solutions without accounting for spot effects, based on the INTEGRAL/OMC and OAN photometry.
Table 7: Absolute dimensions of TYC 2675-663-1.
3.4 Absolute dimensions
The combination of the light curve and spectroscopic parameters leads
to the physical properties of the system presented in
Table 7. The temperature difference between the
stars is 940 K and the individual values correspond to spectral
types of approximately F5 and G7 for the primary and secondary,
respectively. Using these individual temperatures, we inferred
bolometric corrections BCV of
-0.032+0.009-0.019 and
-0.149+0.080-0.005 for the primary and secondary stars,
respectively, based on the tabulations by Masana et al. (2006). The
errors were propagated from the temperature uncertainties. With the
bolometric magnitudes that follow from the temperatures and radii, we
derive absolute visual magnitudes MV of
3.84+0.20-0.22and
4.84-0.60+0.08. The magnitude difference agrees well
with the value inferred from the flux ratio between the
components from the fits (i.e.,
;
see Table 5).
The apparent visual magnitudes of the primary and secondary follow
from the out-of-eclipse brightness and the light ratio and are
and
,
respectively. With a visual extinction
estimate of
A(V) = 0.2 from Drimmel et al. (2003) and the absolute
magnitudes given above, we infer a distance to the binary system of
D
= 360+130-50 pc.
3.5 X-ray emission
The sky position of the optical source TYC 2675-663-1 is 14
far from the ROSAT source 1RXS J200912.0+323344, which has a
1
positional uncertainty of 8
(Voges et al. 1999). This
implies a formal coincidence likelihood between the optical and the
X-ray locations of <13%. The reality of this X-ray source is
confirmed by its detection by the XMM-Newton satellite (under
the designation XMMSL1 J200910.0+323358) at similar coordinates as the
ROSAT source (Freyberg et al. 2006) and with a similar positional
uncertainty
. The count
rate and hardness ratio of the source measured by ROSAT are
counts s-1 and
,
respectively. This
translates to an integrated flux of
erg s-1cm-2 in the 0.1-2.4 keV energy band (Schmitt et al. 1995). Assuming a
distance to the source of
D=360-50+130 pc then gives an
intrinsic luminosity of
erg s-1. Considering the
bolometric luminosities of the components of
and
for the primary and the secondary, we derived an X-ray to total
luminosity ratio of
,
which is typical of binary systems with rotationally induced activity
(see, e.g., Messina et al. 2003).
3.6 Analysis of spectroscopic features
Figures 7 and 8 display the sequence of 14
normalized low-resolution spectra from the TWIN spectrograph in the
range from 4800 to 4950 Å and from 6400 to 6700 Å, showing
the most interesting features. Among the most prominent are the strong
Balmer lines in emission (H
and H
at
Å and 4861 Å, respectively) and the He I line
centered at 6680 Å. The H
emission is complex and is
discussed below.
In the red spectra (Fig. 8) there is a clear absorption
feature at around 6490 Å. If this has a photospheric origin,
it is likely to be a blend composed mainly of Ti II, Ca I,
Fe I and Ba II lines, which are the ones with the largest
oscillator strengths in this spectral range. To illustrate this we show in
Fig. 9 the synthetic spectrum of a star
similar to the primary component of TYC 2675-663-1 (
K,
,
km s-1 and an
assumed [M/H] = 0.0), together with the result of applying a
rotational broadening of 144 km s-1, which is our estimate for
the primary star assuming spin-orbit synchronization. This washes out
the narrow lines, producing a single broad feature, as observed.
The steady character of this broad absorption suggests its origin
in a third star, perhaps a distant companion to the binary system. This
may perhaps explain the third light contribution inferred from the fits
of the light curves in Sect. 3.3. Nevertheless, more complete
spectroscopic observations are needed to confirm the likely stellar origin of this absorption complex.
![]() |
Figure 7:
Blue spectra of TYC 2675-663-1 obtained with the TWIN
spectrograph (4800-4950 Å) showing the
H |
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Figure 8:
Red spectra of TYC 2675-663-1 obtained with the TWIN spectrograph (6400-6700 Å) showing the
prominent H |
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![]() |
Figure 9:
Synthetic spectrum corresponding to a star
similar to the primary of TYC 2675-663-1, with
|
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3.6.1 The H
emission line
Very broad H
emission (
km s-1) is detected in the spectra of this binary
system. Phenomenologically, the H
complex can be described by
the presence of what appear to be two broad and asymmetric emission
lines centered at 6553 Å and 6568 Å, plus a steady
absorption dip between them (P-Cygni profile). This emission has a
complicated structure with several components that seem to be moving
with orbital phase. In order to better understand this complex
evolution with phase we fitted the profile with additional
components. After trying a number of different combinations, we found
that the behavior of the H
region of the spectrum can be
adequately described with five components (see Figs. 10 and 11): one in absorption and four in emission. The
absorption line (line 5) is steady, with a radial velocity of
km s-1.
Similar outflows were associated with stellar winds in high mass or post-AGB stars (Varricatt et al. 2004; Chaty & Filliatre 2005), with velocities similar to those we found (e.g., -105 km s-1; Smolinski et al. 1993). However, for the present binary system TYC 2675-663-1, which is composed of two main sequence stars of late spectral type (and likely a third star of similar or later spectral type), the absorption is unlikely to be due to stellar winds. Its nature is presently unclear.
In Fig. 11 two of the Gaussian components (lines 3 and 4) appear to follow the orbital motion of the primary star, with a
maximum velocity excursion at quadrature (
). The
velocities at quadrature are
km s-1 and
km s-1, respectively. Given the previously measured
orbital semiamplitudes of
km s-1 and
km s-1 for the primary and secondary, respectively, we
tentatively identify line 3 with the surface of the primary star. The
emission represented by line 4 comes from a region that is moving
three to four times faster. Elucidating the origin of these wings and the absorption feature of the H
complex will most likely require further
spectroscopic observations that are beyond the scope of the present
work, to obtain complete phase coverage over a full orbital
cycle.
![]() |
Figure 10:
Enlarged view of the H |
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Figure 11:
Radial velocity variation of each line component fitted to the H |
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4 Discussion
Our analysis of the close eclipsing binary TYC 2675-663-1 revealed
properties similar in many respects to those of the W UMa systems,
which are characterized by having short orbital periods (0.2-0.8 d)
and an overcontact configuration and are composed of F-K stars
sharing a common envelope that thermalizes the stars. This leads to
near equal depths for the eclipses. TYC 2675-663-1 displays eclipses
with clearly different depths, which would imply non-thermal
equilibrium. Nevertheless, the stars have spectral types of F5 and G7
in the typical range of W UMa class and appear to be in
geometrical contact despite the temperatures being different by
approximately 940 K. The high mass ratio we derive,
,
identifies the object as an H-type W UMa
variable (``H'' for high mass ratio), a subgroup first proposed
by Csizmadia et al. (2004). In these objects the energy transfer rate
appears to be less efficient than in other types of contact
binaries. They also show excess angular momentum, which can be
understood as resulting from the first stages of the interaction
between the components (see Li et al. 2004, and references therein).
The overall properties of TYC 2675-663-1 suggest a system at or
near contact and perhaps in the early stages of evolution toward a
state of full geometrical and thermal contact (coalescence).
W UMa systems such as the binary studied here typically show increased
chromospheric activity due to the rapid rotation of the components
(Applegate 1992) and this is usually accompanied by soft X-ray
emission (Messina et al. 2003). This chromospheric activity is manifested
by the unequal brightness at quadratures, asymmetrical minima and
erratic flares shown in the light curves, which are collectively
referred to as the O'Connell effect. TYC 2675-663-1 shows clear
evidence of each of these, including the X-ray emission. The presence of the He I
Å emission line, as we see in
the spectra ofTYC 2675-663-1, is often interpreted as evidence of the
interaction between the components of the binary system, in the form
of winds or streams of matter (Graham 1992; Scholz & Jayawardhana 2006; Greeley et al. 1999; Takami et al. 2001). The H
region of the spectrum is complex, with
emission and absorption components that are not yet fully understood.
Our spectroscopic and photometric observations of TYC 2675-663-1 provided a first picture of this close binary system, in which the two stars differ greatly in temperature, but are in a near-contact configuration, perhaps leading to coalescence. It appears to be a rare example of this class of W UMa objects. There is circumstantial evidence for a third star in the system. We hope that this study will be helpful in the development of theories to understand the early behavior and evolution of W UMa systems.
AcknowledgementsWe are grateful to the referee, A. Prsa, for very helpful comments. M.C.G. thanks K. Yakut for very useful discussions and F. Vilardell for providing the table of the critical potentials. OMC has been funded by the Spanish MCyT under grants ESP95-0389-C02-02, ESP2002-04124-C03-01, ESP2005-07714-C03-03 and AYA2008-03467/ESP. We thank David Galadi and Teresa Eibe for the data taken at the CAB Giordano Bruno telescope. This research was partially supported by the MCyT under grant PNE2003-04352. This work is based on observations made with INTEGRAL, an ESA science mission with instruments and science data center funded by ESA member states and with the participation of Russia and the USA. We are grateful to the Calar Alto Observatory for allocation of Director's discretionary time to this program.
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Footnotes
- ... software
- Available in the web: http://isdc.unige.ch/?Soft+download
- ...)color
- We adopted
and
, where V comes from the mean INTEGRAL/OMC standard magnitude out of eclipse (similar to the Johnson V magnitude). The corresponding uncertainty is a conservative estimate based on the short period variations of the light curve over timescales of a few weeks (less affected by stellar activity, although those effects are still present, as seen in Fig. 4). The K magnitude is taken from the 2MASS catalog (Cutri et al. 2003). We also adopted reddening corrections of E(V - K) = 0.16 and E(B - V) = 0.065, as well as A(V) = 0.2 (Fitzpatrick 1999). The temperature is based on the (V-K)-
relationship from Masana et al. (2006).
- ...
- The corresponding secondary Roche lobe potential is
, assuming synchronous rotation.
- ...
uncertainty
- The quoted positions in the slew catalog have a
1 sigma error of 8
, which for point sources is dominated by the accuracy of the attitude reconstruction during the slews. The statistical position error quoted in the catalog has a mean of
4
(1 image pixel) for non-extended sources.
All Tables
Table 1: Log of the observations used in this work.
Table 2:
Measured times of mid-eclipse for TYC 2675-663-1, listed with their errors (), cycle number (E) and O -C residuals from the adopted ephemeris.
Table 3: Radial velocities obtained for the primary (1) and the secondary components (2).
Table 4: Spectroscopic orbital parameters of TYC 2675-663-1.
Table 5: Light curve solutions based on the OAN photometry, for an overcontact and semi-detached configuration.
Table 6: Light curve solutions without accounting for spot effects, based on the INTEGRAL/OMC and OAN photometry.
Table 7: Absolute dimensions of TYC 2675-663-1.
All Figures
![]() |
Figure 1: Field of view of the INTEGRAL/OMC target TYC 2675-663-1 (red point) and the ROSAT source 1RXS J200912.0+323344 (blue circle) at its nominal catalog position. |
Open with DEXTER | |
In the text |
![]() |
Figure 2:
Complete INTEGRAL/OMC light curve folded with the
period of
|
Open with DEXTER | |
In the text |
![]() |
Figure 3:
CfA radial velocity measurements of TYC 2675-663-1
along with our best-fit model, folded with the period
|
Open with DEXTER | |
In the text |
![]() |
Figure 4: INTEGRAL/OMC light curve of TYC 2675-663-1 in the Johnson V band, folded with the adopted ephemeris. Separate time intervals are shown to illustrate the changes in shape due to activity ( from upper-left to lower-right). The superimposed curves (red) represent a fit without accounting for spots (see text), shown here only for reference. |
Open with DEXTER | |
In the text |
![]() |
Figure 5: Light curves of TYC 2675-663-1 obtained with the OAN telescope in the V, B and I bands ( top to bottom), folded according to the adopted ephemeris. This photometry is strictly differential (magnitudes shown have an arbitrary zero point). The curves represent our best-fit solution for an overcontact configuration, including the effect of spots. |
Open with DEXTER | |
In the text |
![]() |
Figure 6: Configuration of the system at different phases, showing the location of the spot on the secondary. From top to bottom, the phases are approximately 0.00, 0.25 and 0.75. The size and separation of the stars are rendered to scale. |
Open with DEXTER | |
In the text |
![]() |
Figure 7:
Blue spectra of TYC 2675-663-1 obtained with the TWIN
spectrograph (4800-4950 Å) showing the
H |
Open with DEXTER | |
In the text |
![]() |
Figure 8:
Red spectra of TYC 2675-663-1 obtained with the TWIN spectrograph (6400-6700 Å) showing the
prominent H |
Open with DEXTER | |
In the text |
![]() |
Figure 9:
Synthetic spectrum corresponding to a star
similar to the primary of TYC 2675-663-1, with
|
Open with DEXTER | |
In the text |
![]() |
Figure 10:
Enlarged view of the H |
Open with DEXTER | |
In the text |
![]() |
Figure 11:
Radial velocity variation of each line component fitted to the H |
Open with DEXTER | |
In the text |
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