Surprising variations in the rotation of the chemically peculiar stars CU Virginis and V901 Orionis

Abstract

CU Vir and V901 Ori belong among these few magnetic chemically peculiar stars whose rotation periods vary on timescales of decades. We aim to study the stability of the periods in CU Vir and V901 Ori using all accessible observational data containing phase information. We collected all available relevant archived observations supplemented with our new measurements of these stars and analysed the period variations of the stars using a novel method that allows for the combination of data of diverse sorts. We found that the shapes of their phase curves were constant, while the periods were changing. Both stars exhibit alternating intervals of rotational braking and acceleration. The rotation period of CU Vir was gradually shortening until the year 1968, when it reached its local minimum of 0.52067198 d. The period then started increasing, reaching its local maximum of 0.5207163 d in the year 2005. Since that time the rotation has begun to accelerate again. We also found much smaller period changes in CU Vir on a timescale of several years. The rotation period of V901 Ori was increasing for the past quarter-century, reaching a maximum of 1.538771 d in the year 2003, when the rotation period began to decrease. A theoretically unexpected alternating variability of rotation periods in these stars would remove the spin-down time paradox and brings a new insight into structure and evolution of magnetic upper-main-sequence stars.