Short-period post-common envelope binaries with Balmer emission from SDSS and LAMOST based on ZTF photometric data

Abstract

ABSTRACT We present here 55 short-period post-common envelope binaries (PCEBs) containing a hot white dwarf (WD) and a low-mass main sequence (MS). Based on the photometric data from Zwicky Transient Facility survey data Release 19 (ZTF DR19), the light curves are analysed for about 200 WDMS binaries with emission line(s) identified from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) or the Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fibre Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST) spectra, in which 55 WDMS binaries are found to exhibit variability in their luminosities with a short period and are thus short-period binaries (i.e. PCEBs). In addition, it is found that the orbital periods of these PCEBs locate in a range from 2.2643 to 81.1526 h. However, only six short-period PCEBs are newly discovered and the orbital periods of 19 PCEBs are improved in this work. Meanwhile, it is found that three objects are newly discovered eclipsing PCEBs, and a object (i.e. SDSS J1541) might be the short-period PCEB with a late M-type star or a brown dwarf companion based on the analysis of its spectral energy distribution. At last, the mechanism(s) being responsible for the emission features in the spectra of these PCEBs are discussed, the emission features arising in their optical spectra might be caused by the stellar activity or an irradiated component owing to a hot WD companion because most of them contain a WD with an effective temperature higher than $\sim$10 000 K.