Stars In Binary Systems Research Articles

Eigenfrequencies of rotationally and tidally distorted white dwarf models of stars

In the present paper we have studied the eigenfrequencies of small adiabatic barotropic pseudo-radial and nonradial modes of oscillations of the white dwarf models of rotating stars in binary systems. In this work the methodology of Mohan and Saxena (in Astrophys. Space Sci. 113:155, 1985) has been used that utilizes the averaging technique of Kippenhahn and Thomas (in Proc. IAU Colloq., vol. 4, p. 20, 1970) and certain results on Roche equipotential as that given by Kopal (in Advances in Astronomy and Astrophysics, Academic Press, 1972). The objective of this study is to investigate the effects of rotation and/or tidal distortion on the periods of oscillations of rotationally and/or tidally distorted white dwarf models of stars assuming it to be the primary component of the binary system and rotating uniformly. The results of present study show that the eigenfrequencies (both radial and nonradial modes) of the rotationally distorted and rotationally and tidally distorted white dwarf model of stars in binary systems tend to decrease under the influence of rotational distortions and rotational and tidal distortions, respectively. However, results are contrary for tidally distorted white dwarf model of stars.

The role of radioactive ion beams in nuclear astrophysics

Short-lived exotic nuclei play essential roles in the dynamics of many stellar objects and their associated nucleosynthesis, including core-collapse and thermonuclear supernovae, novae, x-ray bursters and mass-accreting neutron stars in binary systems. To produce such nuclei and to study their properties requires radioactive ion-beam facilities. While the short-lived nuclei on the neutron-deficient side of the chart of nuclei are often within reach at current experimental facilities, albeit not necessarily with the beam intensities needed, the extremely neutron-rich nuclei, required for an understanding of the synthesis of heavy elements in the Universe by the astrophysical r-process, have to wait, in most cases, for the next-generation radioactive ion-beam facilities. This paper discusses highlights of recent experimental and theoretical advances in determining the properties of exotic nuclei and the further need for reliable studies of astrophysical objects such as supernovae, novae, x-ray bursters and neutron stars.

PTF 11kx: A Type Ia Supernova with a Symbiotic Nova Progenitor

There is a consensus that type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) arise from the thermonuclear explosion of white dwarf stars that accrete matter from a binary companion. However, direct observation of SN Ia progenitors is lacking, and the precise nature of the binary companion remains uncertain. A temporal series of high-resolution optical spectra of the SN Ia PTF 11kx reveals a complex circumstellar environment that provides an unprecedentedly detailed view of the progenitor system. Multiple shells of circumstellar material are detected, and the SN ejecta are seen to interact with circumstellar material starting 59 days after the explosion. These features are best described by a symbiotic nova progenitor, similar to RS Ophiuchi.

Luminous Supernovae

Stellar Explosions Stars that are born with masses greater than eight times that of the Sun end their lives in luminous explosions known as supernovae. Over the past decade, access to improved sky surveys has revealed rare types of supernovae that are much more luminous than any of those that were known before. Gal-Yam (p. 927 ) reviews these superluminous events and groups them into three classes that share common observational and physical characteristics. Gamma-ray bursts are another type of extreme explosive events related to the death of massive stars, which occur once per day somewhere in the universe and produce short-lived bursts of gamma-ray light. Gehrels and Mészáros (p. 932 ) review what has been learned about these events since the launch of NASA's Swift (2004) and Fermi (2008) satellites. The current interpretation is that gamma-ray bursts are related to the formation of black holes. Type Ia supernovae are used as cosmological distance indicators. They are thought to be the result of the thermonuclear explosion of white dwarf stars in binary systems, but the nature of the stellar companion to the white dwarf is still debated. Dilday et al. (p. 942 ) report high-resolution spectroscopy of the supernova PTF 11kx, which was detected on 26 January 2011 by the Palomar Transient Factory survey. The data suggest a red giant star companion whose material got transferred to the white dwarf.

Enhancement of Dark Matter Capture by Neutron Stars in Binary Systems

We study the capture of dark matter particles by neutron stars in close binary systems. By performing a direct numerical simulation, we find that there is a sizable amplification of the rate of dark matter capture by each of the companions. In the case of the binary pulsar PSR J1906+0746 with the orbital period of 4 hours the amplification factor is approximately equal to 3.5. This amplification can be attributed to the energy loss by dark matter particles resulting from their gravitational scattering off moving companions.

Searches for continuous gravitational waves with the LIGO and Virgo detector

AbstractThe LIGO Scientific Collaboration and Virgo Collaboration have carried out joint searches in LIGO and Virgo data for periodic continuous gravitational waves. These analyses range from targeted searches for gravitational-wave signals from known pulsars, for which precise ephemerides from radio or X-ray observations are used in matched filters, to all-sky searches for unknown neutron stars, including stars in binary systems. Between these extremes lie directed searches for known stars of unknown spin frequency or for new unknown sources at specific locations, such as near the galactic center or in globular clusters. Recent and ongoing searches of each type will be summarized, along with prospects for future searches using data from the Advanced LIGO and Virgo detectors.

Gamma-Ray Bursts

Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are bright flashes of gamma rays coming from the cosmos. They occur roughly once per day, typically last for tens of seconds, and are the most luminous events in the universe. More than three decades after their discovery, and after pioneering advances from space and ground experiments, they still remain mysterious. The launch of the Swift and Fermi satellites in 2004 and 2008 brought in a trove of qualitatively new data. In this Review, we survey the interplay between these recent observations and the theoretical models of the prompt GRB emission and the subsequent afterglow.

Structures and oscillations of rotationally and tidally distorted polytropic models of stars in the presence of the Coriolis force

The problems of equilibrium structures and periods of oscillations of rotationally and/or tidally distorted polytropic models of stars in binary systems have been studied previously. In the studies, only the effects of gravitational and centrifugal forces while obtaining the Roche equipotential of such stars were considered. The Coriolis force were not considered. In the present study, we have included the effects of the Coriolis force also. The objective of this study is to investigate as to how the inclusion of the Coriolis force in the Roche equipotential affects the equilibrium structures and periods of oscillations of rotationally and/or tidally distorted stars. The results of our study show that the Coriolis force has no appreciable effect on the equilibrium structures and periods of small oscillations of polytropic models of stars in binary systems. The present study also confirms the earlier conclusions that uniform rotation decreases the eigenfrequencies of various modes of oscillation.

The final parsec problem: aligning a binary with an external accretion disc

Abstract We consider the interaction between a binary system (e.g. two supermassive black holes or two stars) and an external accretion disc with misaligned angular momentum. This situation occurs in galaxy merger events involving supermassive black holes, and in the formation of stellar mass binaries in star clusters. We work out the gravitational torque between the binary and disc, and show that their angular momenta Jb, Jd stably counteralign if their initial orientation is sufficiently retrograde, specifically if the angle θ between them obeys cos θ < −Jd/2Jb, on a time short compared with the mass gain time of the central accretor(s). The magnitude Jb remains unchanged in this process. Counteralignment can promote the rapid merger of supermassive black hole binaries, and possibly the formation of coplanar but retrograde planets around stars in binary systems.

An all-sky search algorithm for continuous gravitational waves from spinning neutron stars in binary systems

Rapidly spinning neutron stars with non-axisymmetric mass distributions are expected to generate quasi-monochromatic continuous gravitational waves. While many searches for unknown, isolated spinning neutron stars have been carried out, there have been no previous searches for unknown sources in binary systems. Since current search methods for unknown, isolated neutron stars are already computationally limited, expanding the parameter space searched to include binary systems is a formidable challenge. We present a new hierarchical binary search method called TwoSpect, which exploits the periodic orbital modulations of the continuous waves by searching for patterns in doubly Fourier-transformed data. We will describe the TwoSpect search pipeline, including its mitigation of detector noise variations and corrections for Doppler frequency modulation caused by changing detector velocity. Tests on Gaussian noise and on a set of simulated signals will be presented.

A giant planet in the triple system HD 132563

As part of our radial velocity planet-search survey performed with SARG at TNG, we monitored the components of HD 132563 for ten years. It is a binary system formed by two rather similar solar type stars with a projected separation of 4.1 arcsec, which corresponds to 400 AU at the distance of 96 pc. The two components are moderately metal-poor and the age of the system is about 5 Gyr. We detected RV variations of HD 132563B with period of 1544 days and semi-amplitude of 26 m/s. From the star characteristics and line profile measurements, we infer their Keplerian origin. Therefore HD 132563B turns out to host a planet with a projected mass msini=1.49 MJup at 2.6 AU with a moderately eccentric orbit (e=0.22). The planet around HD 132563B is one of the few that are known in triple stellar systems, as we found that the primary HD 132563A is itself a spectroscopic binary with a period longer than 15 years and an eccentricity higher than 0.65. The spectroscopic component was not detected in adaptive-optics images taken with AdOpt@TNG, since it expected at a projected separation that was smaller than 0.2 arcsec at the time of our observations. A small excess in K band difference between the components with respect to the difference in V band is compatible with a companion of about 0.55 Msun. A preliminary statistical analysis of the occurrence of planets in triple systems indicate a similar frequency of planets around the isolated component in a triple system, components of wide binaries and single stars. There is no significant iron abundance difference between the components. The lack of stars in binary systems and open clusters showing strong enhancements of iron abundance, comparable to the typical metallicity difference between stars with and without giant planets, agrees with the idea that accretion of planetary material producing iron abundance anomalies larger than 0.1 dex is rare.

Circumstellar Material in Type Ia Supernovae via Sodium Absorption Features

Type Ia supernovae are key tools for measuring distances on a cosmic scale. They are generally thought to be the thermonuclear explosion of an accreting white dwarf in a close binary system. The nature of the mass donor is still uncertain. In the single-degenerate model it is a main-sequence star or an evolved star, whereas in the double-degenerate model it is another white dwarf. We show that the velocity structure of absorbing material along the line of sight to 35 type Ia supernovae tends to be blueshifted. These structures are likely signatures of gas outflows from the supernova progenitor systems. Thus, many type Ia supernovae in nearby spiral galaxies may originate in single-degenerate systems.

GLMP 160 – the first [WR] star in a binary

AbstractWe discuss the results of the search for [WR] central stars in binary systems. GLMP 160 is the first [WR] central star in a binary system known. We analyze photometry, spectroscopy and imaging of this system.

Are short GRBs powered by magnetars?

AbstractThe standard model for a short duration Gamma-Ray Burst (GRB) involves the merger of a neutron star binary system, resulting in a black hole which accretes for a brief period of time. However, some of the short-duration GRBs observed by the Swift satellite show features in their light curves which are difficult to explain in this model. As an alternative, we examine the light curves of the Swift short GRB sample to see if they can be explained by the presence of a highly magnetised, rapidly rotating pulsar, or magnetar. We find that magnetars may be present in a large fraction of short bursts, and discuss briefly how this model can be tested using the next generation of gravity-wave observatories.

The influence of magnetic field on short-wavelength instability of Riemann ellipsoids

We address the question of stability of the so-called S-type Riemann ellipsoids, i.e. a family of Euler flows in gravitational equilibrium with the vorticity and background rotation aligned along the principal axis perpendicular to the flow. The Riemann ellipsoids are the simplest models of self-gravitating, tidally deformed stars in binary systems, with the ellipticity of the flow modelling the tidal deformation. By the use of the WKB theory we show that mathematically the problem of stability of Riemann ellipsoids with respect to short-wavelength perturbations can be reduced to the problem of magneto-elliptic instability in rotating systems, studied previously by Mizerski and Bajer [K.A. Mizerski, K. Bajer, The magneto-elliptic instability of rotating systems, J. Fluid Mech. 632 (2009) 401–430]. In other words the equations describing the evolution of short-wavelength perturbations of the Riemann ellipsoids considered in Lagrangian variables are the same as those for the evolution of the magneto-elliptic-rotational ( MER) waves in unbounded domain. This allowed us to use the most unstable MER eigenmodes found in Mizerski et al. [K.A. Mizerski, K. Bajer, H.K. Moffatt, The α -effect associated with elliptical instability, J. Fluid Mech., 2010 (in preparation)] to provide an estimate of the characteristic tidal synchronization time in binary star systems. We use the idea of Tassoul [J.-L. Tassoul, On synchronization in early-type binaries, Astrophys. J. 322 (1987) 856–861] and that the interactions between perturbations significantly increase the effective viscosity and hence the energy dissipation in an Ekman-type boundary layer at the surface of the star. The results obtained suggest that if the magnetic field generated by (say) the secondary component of a binary system is strong enough to affect the flow dynamics in the primary, non-magnetized component, the characteristic tidal synchronization time can be significantly reduced.

LOW-MASS ECLIPSING BINARIES IN THE INITIALKEPLERDATA RELEASE

We identify 231 objects in the newly released Cycle 0 dataset from the Kepler Mission as double-eclipse, detached eclipsing binary systems with Teff < 5500 K and orbital periods shorter than ~32 days. We model each light curve using the JKTEBOP code with a genetic algorithm to obtain precise values for each system. We identify 95 new systems with both components below 1.0 M_sun and eclipses of at least 0.1 magnitudes, suitable for ground-based follow-up. Of these, 14 have periods less than 1.0 day, 52 have periods between 1.0 and 10.0 days, and 29 have periods greater than 10.0 days. This new sample of main-sequence, low-mass, double-eclipse, detached eclipsing binary candidates more than doubles the number of previously known systems, and extends the sample into the completely heretofore unexplored P > 10.0 day period regime. We find preliminary evidence from these systems that the radii of low-mass stars in binary systems decrease with period. This supports the theory that binary spin-up is the primary cause of inflated radii in low-mass binary systems, although a full analysis of each system with radial-velocity and multi-color light curves is needed to fully explore this hypothesis. As well, we present 7 new transiting planet candidates that do not appear among the recently released list of 706 candidates by the Kepler team, nor in the Kepler False Positive Catalog, along with several other new and interesting systems. We also present novel techniques for the identification, period analysis, and modeling of eclipsing binaries.

An all-sky search algorithm for continuous gravitational waves from spinning neutron stars in binary systems

An all-sky search algorithm for continuous gravitational waves from spinning neutron stars in binary systems

Numerical relativity confronts compact neutron star binaries: a review and status report

We review the current status of attempts to numerically model the merger of neutron star–neutron star (NSNS) and black hole–neutron star (BHNS) binary systems and describe the understanding of such events that is emerging from these calculations. To accurately model the physics of NSNS and BHNS mergers is a difficult task. It requires solving Einstein's equations for dynamic spacetimes containing black holes. It also requires evolving the hot, supernuclear-density neutron star matter together with the magnetic and radiation fields that can influence the post-merger dynamics. Older studies concentrated on either one or the other of these challenges, but now efforts are being made to model both relativity and microphysics accurately together. These NSNS and BHNS simulations are then used to characterize the gravitational wave signals of such events and to address their potential for generating short-duration gamma ray bursts.

DISCOVERY OF A RED GIANT WITH SOLAR-LIKE OSCILLATIONS IN AN ECLIPSING BINARY SYSTEM FROM KEPLER SPACE-BASED PHOTOMETRY

Oscillating stars in binary systems are among the most interesting stellar laboratories, as these can provide information on the stellar parameters and stellar internal structures. Here we present a red giant with solar-like oscillations in an eclipsing binary observed with the NASA Kepler satellite. We compute stellar parameters of the red giant from spectra and the asteroseismic mass and radius from the oscillations. Although only one eclipse has been observed so far, we can already determine that the secondary is a main-sequence F star in an eccentric orbit with a semi-major axis larger than 0.5 AU and orbital period longer than 75 days.

SEEING THE COLLISION OF A SUPERNOVA WITH ITS COMPANION STAR

The progenitors of Type Ia and some core collapse supernovae are thought to be stars in binary systems, but little observational evidence exists to confirm the hypothesis. We suggest that the collision of the supernova ejecta with its companion star should produce detectable emission in the hours and days following the explosion. The interaction occurs at distances ~10^11-10^13 cm and shocks the impacting supernova debris, dissipating kinetic energy and re-heating the gas. Initially, some radiation may escape promptly through the evacuated region of the shadowcone, producing a bright X-ray (0.1-2 keV) burst lasting minutes to hours with luminosity L ~ 10^44 ergs/s. Continuing radiative diffusion from deeper layers of shock heated ejecta produces a longer lasting optical/UV emission which exceeds the radioactively powered luminosity of the supernova for the first few days after the explosion. These signatures are prominent for viewing angles looking down upon the shocked region, or about 10% of the time. The properties of the emission provide a straightforward measure of the separation distance between the stars and hence (assuming Roche lobe overflow) the companion's radius. Current optical and UV data sets likely already constrain red giant companions. By systematically acquiring early time data for many supernovae, it should eventually be possible to empirically determine how the parameters of the progenitor system influence the outcome of the explosion.